Give Someone or Something The Thumbs Up - Learn English Idioms

First -- It's gonna be ok.
Second -- Being rescinded does happen, but not often.
Still, the threat of being rescinded — when a college revokes its offer of admission to a student — is scary for a reason. All that hard work and stress for nothing? Kids often wonder, what did that person do to deserve that? It must have been something really bad. Unless it wasn’t. Oh no, what if it was only a little bad? What if I do something only a little bad and I lose my spot?
I find there’s a bunch of confusion surrounding being rescinded. To be clear, at many colleges, offers of admission are conditional upon several factors. Those offers can be withdrawn at any time if those conditions aren’t fulfilled. This is because the college wants to make sure that students take their commitment to the school seriously. They don’t want to admit students who work hard only when they want something or who demonstrate certain values only to gain acceptance.
For example, a college might rescind admission if a student’s academic performance takes a dive in the last semester (and I mean a dive). It isn’t always just about grades either — a college might rescind admission for non-academic behavior. If you get into big trouble, such as by engaging in criminal behavior or doing something really, really stupid that undermines the picture of the person you claim to be, a college might not like that very much.
Yes, being rescinded happens. But it’s not as common as you might think. And if a student has done something that draws negative attention, the university will more often than not ask for an explanation.
But let’s just avoid being rescinded altogether. Here’s how:
1. Keep your grades up.
You can’t slack off your last semester. Try to maintain your grades as much as you can. You don’t want to put all your hard work in jeopardy right before you cross the finish line. I had a Redditor contact me last fall because their admission to a UC school was rescinded over three Cs. So, it happens. Be careful. Here’s a clear rule of thumb: don’t go down over one letter grade per class and don’t do that in more than a few classes. You definitely want to avoid Ds altogether, and also avoid having your entire GPA go down more than one letter grade.
However, know that one bad grade isn’t the end of the world. If you earn a lower grade in a class or even two, during your last semester despite your best efforts, you’ll probably be ok, especially if your other grades remained steady. Look, bad grades happen. Colleges know you have a whole other semester left when they accept you. IF your grades take a dive and you’re rescinded or asked to explain them, be open and honest. I’ve had students write letters about family obligations that took over their lives and they just couldn’t keep up the grades they’d historically made, and it worked out fine. If your grades plummet or drop down more than one letter grade, you should probably get ahead of it and reach out to colleges, explaining your situation and what you've learned from it.
This year, more than ever, it’s going to be important to be transparent with colleges about aspects of your life that have had an effect on your report card: limited access to the internet and technology, members of your household who’ve been struggling with Covid 19 or mental health issues, and economic issues are all real issues that students are coping with and colleges understand that the last nine months could have had an impact on your application and your grades -- even this last semester. So be prepared to explain what’s happening to you. Explaining your situation is NOT making excuses.
2. Don’t be messy on social media OR DO or SAY anything that harms others. Even if you don't post, it will probably be posted on social media by someone else.
Generally, you should focus on being a good person, but you especially need to be careful during your senior year, and especially on social media. On the Tulane Admissions Blog, Jeff Schiffman explains that “The most frequent reason I rescind admissions is dumb stuff you do on social media.” He goes on to explain that admissions officers aren’t trolling social media waiting for you to slip up — they don’t have to. Someone will send them a screenshot of something offensive, and that’s how it starts. As he explains it, “Being a jerk on social media to your peers or your community” is something he has no patience for.
I think you can just extend that to don’t be a jerk. Look, of course, we all have our moments when we act like jerks, but the fact is cell phone videos get posted or sent to colleges all the time. You don’t want to be the kid who has to explain their language choices to an admissions office. You don’t want to be that kid who has to learn the lesson the hard way that your words matter and they can be hurtful. More than a few future seniors had their applications rescinded this past fall for their behavior and words -- either posted to social media by them or others.
So, for example, while you and your friends may think your humor is raw and it’s a blast to be super edgy on Twitter, TikTok, or Instagram Stories, the Tulane or Georgia Tech admissions office might feel a bit differently. Don’t let it get to that point.
3. If something happens and your college comes looking for answers, come clean.
If your college has concerns, they’ll ask you what’s going on, which allows you and your guidance counselor to offer a valid and reasonable explanation. If it’s about grades, talk about how you learned your lesson and how you’ve learned to manage your time more wisely. You can say that you got in over your head, and you have learned how to deal with that situation. Explain that if you catch yourself in a bind in college, you will immediately go to the tutoring center and meet with your professor and TA.
If you did something stupid or mean or illegal, own up to it and talk about how you understand the gravity of your offense. Assure the college that you learned something and you have changed for the better. Reiterate that you made mistakes, learned a painful but important lesson, and you are now ready to steer your academic and behavioral ship in the right direction. Talk about how your experience will make you a better college student now.
For whatever reason (and I hope this never applies to you), if your application is rescinded, reflect on what happened, learn from the experience, grow from what you learned, and move on to the next experience. Unfortunately, if it gets to that point, that’s all you can do. But please please PLEASE know that being rescinded is not common, and if you keep your eye on the prize and focus on being a good person and keeping your grades up, you won’t have to worry about it.
tl;dr: 1. keep up your grades: don't drop down more than a letter grade, don't make Ds. 2. don't be a jerk. 3. prepare to explain.

So another round one, chapter 90. Only 10 to go for the big number, this actually also marks 1000 novel size pages of story-making just over 277.000 words thus far O_o For comparison, the lord of the rings is 576.000 so damn near halfway there... Holy fuck that is a lot of writing in just over three months. To mark the occasion this one is a special one. at some point, during today's story, there is going to be a fade to black and a little link (If you are speed machines please have patients it's coming ASAP)
Now in there, you will find nothing but gratuitous pancake, this is so that you have the choice, you may skip the standalone chapter and I promise you are not missing any of the actual story, at least as little as I could manage. for the rest of you Enjoy,
With the semantics out of the way, I say we get on with the story,
ko-fi For having more pretty pictures commissioned.
Sapphire
Wiki Discord
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Chapter 90: A Bad Night
Luke had returned with a gaggle of kids, who all looked rather overwhelmed by what they saw coming out. There were a lot of them, Tom counted twelve in total. All of them rather young; he guessed the oldest one looked about nine.
“Look, dragon!” a young boy shouted, running over to Jarix with a few others on his heels. Some were looking around, clearly searching for people who might not be here anymore. Others stood staring at Tom.
The sight of other kids also caused a fair amount of excitement, Luke ushering the more timid kids towards the ones from Hylsdal.
Tom just stood there putting a hand around Jacky’s waist, looking at the best reason for doing all this. He chuckled as Jarix elevated his head just out of grabbing range as the more excitable of the kids tried to touch his face. He had a smile on though, even if he looked a little unsure of what to do. Zarko was on hand to help though, telling off the kids who tried to climb up the wounded dragon.
It took some coaxing, but in the end, most of the kids had been convinced to start playing with each other, though some were still around sitting either crying or just keeping to themselves. Lothal was doing his best to try and console his friends and doing a remarkably good job of it. Tom couldn't decide if he was proud or sad at seeing an eleven-year-old acting like an adult.
Dinner was nothing special, just some more of the stew from earlier with some rather stale tasting bread. Jacky, Tom, Zarko, and Unkai had sat together with the lady, Luke, Requi and the healer who was sort of conscious for the moment. She was apparently called Quin, at least for short. Unkai too was sitting rather slack-eared, clearly having been put to hard work already.
Jarix was given some cuts of cured meat. The lady had brought out both some decent ale and even some wine, which was passed around the table. Tom had never tried dragonette wine before, so, despite his reservations about mixing alcohol with blood loss, he poured a cup for himself. That was an old student tactic, after all, to donate blood before a night on the town. It made things a bit cheaper.
“We might not be able to put together a feast, but we can do this, a small token of thanks. Luke, if you wouldn’t mind,” The Lady went as she took her seat, Luke standing up raising a glass.
“To the heroes in our hour of need!”
Tom damn near stood up to join Luke, Zarko grabbing him by the shoulder to keep him seated. As the assembled dragonettes of the keep gave a toast. Tom didn’t really know if he felt proud or just uncomfortable at this point. On one hand, he could look around the room to see many faces, most of which appeared happy. On the other hand, many definitely weren’t: a lone wounded father with a sobbing kid; the kids from Hylsdal; the countless wounded, some looking like they might not fly or even walk properly again.
“To the crazy bastard who made it possible,” Jackalope went as she raised her cup looking at Tom, apparently figuring out what was being toasted.
“Hey!” Jarix let out, clearly trying to sound offended. “To the crazy bastards who made it possible,” Zarko corrected, raising her cup.
“To wiping those fuckers off the map,” Tom joined in, feeling a little left out.
“Cheers to that,” The silvered huntress replied without much enthusiasm, slamming her drink down in one go. She was joined by the others. Tom took his time with his wine though. As expected it was rather sweet, definitely not bad though. They hadn’t made a huge thing out of the meal, it was just stew and bread after all, even if their drinks were well above average.
It had been a rather awkward meal though. Jackalope couldn’t partake in the conversation unless Tom or someone else wrote down for her what was going on. They all did their best to avoid the more depressing subject matters, but it was pretty damn hard to avoid them in their current state. Quite a few of the others had taken to drinking rather heavily. Tom could hardly blame them, but he kept it mild for now. Jacky, though, did make a dent in the ale supply. She didn’t get piss drunk, but she was definitely inebriated by now.
“You know, I’ve never been called a hero before,” Jacky went, leaning on Tom after they had finished the meal. “You still got the ace though… You always get the ace… Why are you so damn good at killing?” She questioned hanging on his shoulders.
Tom didn’t really know how to answer her on that one. “You know what,” She went, pulling back and poking him in the chest with a finger. “You get to teach me how. You’re not getting the ace next time,” Tom pondered for a second if that was a smart thing to agree to. It was likely going to happen though, so why not.
“I guess that’s the smart part about being deaf, I can’t hear if you're protesting, so I’m just gonna say you agreed,” Jackalope continued before he managed to nod his reply. She poured a fresh mug for the both of them, snickering. Tom debated getting out the notepad to try and tell her he needed to be a little careful when it came to alcohol right now. She beat him to it though. “You’re not drinking like last time; afraid we might do something stupid?”
Unkai damn near choked at that one. Zarko just shook her head, looking a tad embarrassed. ’Remember the angry smith Tom, Remember the angry smith,’ he repeated to himself. He got out the notepad to write down a response. Tom made well sure no one else saw what he wrote as he showed it to Jacky.
“I’m wounded, also your mother,” she pulled back a bit, looking a little annoyed.
“She is not here nor will she be... Hey Unkai! Can you give him a check? He claims to be wounded; I don’t want him dying on me.” She went, sounding entirely inappropriate.
Even Zarko had to suppress a slight laugh at that, Unkai looking like a deer in the headlights as Jacky’s attention switched to him.
“I mean sure. I’ll just finish this,” the healer replied, gesturing at his cup.
“I can’t hear you,” Jackalope reiterated with a side to side head bob. Unkai looked very embarrassed, just giving her a thumbs up instead.
‘Oh boy,’ Tom thought to himself, shrinking down.
“I think he needs more liquid courage to handle me though. Watch closely Unkai, you might learn how to grow a spine. Even if it’s only for a bit,” Jackalope continued, laughing at her own joke as she poured another drink for herself and refilling Tom’s cup.
“The man who went toe to toe with a small army and he needs help to handle you. What does that tell you?” Zarko let out, looking at Tom, seeming very pleased with herself.
“Don’t let them get to you Tom, you're braver than her,” Jarix added, ensuring that everyone in the entire hall was now invested in the conversation.
Tom just picked up the mug of ale she had poured for him. Jackalope excitedly raised hers as they knocked them together. ‘May the hangover have mercy on my soul,’ Tom thought to himself. He had been saved after a few mugs by the lady declaring that they needed to save enough for a proper feast when they could manage it.
The result was a nice buzz and an even cockier Jackalope as they left the table. Perhaps it was her time for some healing following that whole shit show. He had never seen her as distraught as she was at Hylsdal. Not to mention the expression on her face when Zarko had carried the body of the dead girl away after they landed.
Apparently, alcohol had at the very least helped her think about something else, as she was spouting funny stories and, of course, boasting about how amazing she had been in the battle. That had led to a hasty explanation about how Tom had let her borrow some of his power during the battle. He wasn’t entirely sure if any of the locals bought it, but they were way too polite to question the explanation though. Or possibly scared, or just didn’t care, he wasn’t quite sure.
Unkai had gone over Jackalope first and deemed her as fixed as she could be right now; he didn't dare try to fix her ears, claiming that to be way beyond him. He sounded confident that Nunuk might be able to put them back together again though. Jackalope let out an annoyed sigh at the news, though the part about Nunuk did help.
It was clear Jacky and Tom had received priority when it came to getting fixed up after the battle. Unkai had put in some work on Tom, mainly putting his effort into the stinger wound on his side. Tom had him check his neck wound as thoroughly as he could manage. But Unkai claimed that was as good as it was going to get, though he recommended some resting time.
“Fuck, I took painkillers earlier,” Tom let out as Unkai touched the stinger wound, which didn’t hurt as much as it should have.
“Is that bad?” Unkai had questioned, looking at the wound.
“I drank alcohol too, you're not supposed to mix those.” Unkai looked at Tom as if he was expecting more than that.
“Well don’t look at me, I don’t know how they work,” he finally responded, Jackalope’s face growing worried at the exchange, her gaze breaking as she looked to Unkai.
“He’s fine, right? He’s been stung before. He’s tough on that front even if his skin is soft like a kid’s,” She asked with worry in her voice slurring slightly, Tom taking slight offense at the last part. Unkai turned to her, giving her a thumbs up and a smile before looking back at the wound.
“Anything we can do about it?” the healer questioned, clearly trying to not look worried this time, for Jacky’s sake.
“Don’t think so. I guess I’m just gonna cross my fingers and wait it out,” Tom answered truthfully. He had no clue what the actual effect of that might be. He felt fine though. He was a little weird in the head, but that was honestly to be expected in his current condition.
“Well I don’t think you’re gonna be sleeping alone anyway, but consider it medical advice to have someone look after you,” Unkai replied trying a sly smile, which just looked wrong on him.
“Tom the hot stone reporting for duty,” Tom joked back as Unkai went about reapplying the bandage to the wound. Jacky’s gaze switching back to Tom seemingly excited, the edges of her mouth curling into a slight smile.
The young woman who had washed his clothes earlier had shown them up to the bedrooms after the quick check-up.
“We have a few rooms which weren’t in use before, don’t worry it’s not… someones. I'm sorry if they are dirty, but you can have one each if you want.” She sounded really rather uncomfortable. Tom could get why. He could see the number of rooms and there had to be at least a few that had owners until recently.
“This is very kind of you. Thank you,” Tom replied, the woman giving a curtsy before making her way back down the stairs rather hurriedly. Tom got out the notepad to ask Jacky if she wanted to share a room. Thinking back, that wasn’t at all necessary; he just felt like it was the right thing to at least ask.
Jackalope though didn’t bother to ask him. Taking him by the wrist rather firmly, she led him into the first room the young woman had shown them.
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The Pancake Chapter: Pancake!
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Balethon now safely in her grasp, Sapphire circled back the way she came. She almost wanted to tell him to enjoy this since she was likely not gonna be carrying him again, not to mention at night in nothing but her underwear. The dude had already had a remarkably shitty night though, so she refrained.
She spotted the large disorganized group which had been supposed to keep the tavern safe. They had set down in a square and were looking around confused as Sapphire came in to land. She was quickly greeted by a near-hysterical Haiko who looked ready to drop his mace as he nearly trod on Balethon in an attempt to hug her faster.
“You’re okay, right? Nothing wrong?”
“I’m fine, the bastards couldn’t shoot.”
“Oh thank whoever cared,” he let out, squeezing her tightly.
“Where is Dakota?” Sapphire squeaked out from his embrace. He let go of her taking a step back looking around.
“Not here. Neither is that Maiko guy, and he damn near caught up to you before you shot off into the darkness. You haven't gotten any slower, have you now?”
“Not by much, no,” she replied, looking down to her stricken cargo. “Let’s get him to sit up somewhere. Any of you got some water?” she questioned, looking to the other guards. Her eyes landed on someone being bound up. She assumed it was the mercenary who had tried to attack her. “You're a shit fighter, I hope you know that,” She shouted out, glaring at the arsehole, who just stared at her with clear contempt.
Draki had come over with a canteen of water, looking up to Sapphire and looking a bit strained in the face before he turned to Haiko.
“I owe you two silver, don’t I?” the diminutive guy asked, seeming rather annoyed.
“I told you, she’s the fastest woman you ever saw,” Haiko replied with a smile, trying to fold out Balethon, eventually giving up. “Grab on, let’s put him on that bench over there,” he went, grabbing Balethon by the legs, with Sapphire taking the shoulders as they carried him over. He was stiff as a board, though the panicked look in his eyes was at least sort of gone.
“You put a bet on me catching them?” Sapphire questioned as set him down. She wasn’t sure if she should be flattered or angry. Haiko held up his hands defensively, shaking his head.
“No no, Draki just didn’t believe all the stories, so I put two silver on the stories being true. Easiest bet ever.” That was more to Sapphire’s liking, and she gave him a slightly wicked smile. “You know we used to get a slice of the bets back then.”
“Hey, I got you your own personal protection service,” He replied, gesturing to the motley collection of dragonettes mulling about the square.
“That’s a word for it, I guess,” Sapphire replied, not overly impressed. It wasn’t like they had done much good tonight. “Take good care of him, I have some questions,” she went, leaving Haiko and going over to the now thoroughly tied up dragonette who had attacked her, the questioning already underway. Someone let out a suggestive growl as she walked by. The fact that she was wearing nothing but her underpants in the middle of the street dawning on her.
“Do that again and I’ll kill you,” she snarled, not sure who the offending member was, before turning her attention to the mercenary. “So… You thought kidnapping one of my friends was a good idea? How well would you say that went?” She questioned looking down at the piece of shit.
“Fucking brilliantly,” he responded angrily. “I ended up with a nice view if nothing else,” he continued with a shit-eating grin.
“How hard may I punch him?” She demanded, looking around at the guards. Most of them just looked confused at each other.
“As hard as I say so,” Maiko bellowed out, coming down alongside Dakota, who was carrying a very large unconscious female dragonette with an arrow sticking out of her back.
“Not your best shot, but it did the trick,” Dakota let out, unceremoniously dumping the dragonette on the ground before setting down. “Tie her up too, she won’t be out forever.”
After a bit they got the both of them tied up at about the same time as a contingent of city guards arrived, demanding to know what was going on. Sapphire cursed the fact she likely wouldn’t be allowed to beat the shit out of them now, as they began asking some very pointed questions.
“Oh yeah sure, a group of armed what was it... Tavern guards? Out at night with a pair of half-naked women and a dude who claims to be Royal Guard. And why has she been shot?!” the lead city guard questioned, looking around at them.
“Because she kidnapped him after stabbing him with vargulf poison,” Sapphire let out, wide armed. “How the fuck is that hard to understand!?”
“Calm down woman, who shot her?” the man questioned pointing at the female mercenary.
“I did and two other pieces of shit who tried to kill us!”
“Right, you're all coming with us. We need to know what happened here. Manacles,” the City Guard replied, snapping his fingers over his shoulder and receiving the item in question. Sapphire’s heart sank; she had never been arrested before. Closest she had ever gotten was being given a stern talking to for sneaking into the training fields.
Dakota looked ready with a reply, when Maiko beat her to it.
“Listen up you little shit-eating ground rat, see what this is?!” He went, holding up his sword, which true to form bore the royal insignia on the crossguard. “I will make a cape out of your fucking wings if you don’t man up and do your fucking job. These bastards attacked a tavern in the middle of the night, attempted murder, managed a kidnapping, then had a go at murder again during the desperate chase to catch them and your useless ass turns up just in time to insult the Royal Guard and be useless.”
“I’m gonna have to ask you to...” the city guard attempted to protest, though seemingly with a growing sense of apprehension.
“No, you may not. You are outranked! Or do I need to get the colonel to inform her the city guard is aiding an enemy of the crown? That would lead to some serious fucking cleansing of your unit, I can assure you of that!”
“In that case, I say we take you to the stockade and send for this colonel of yours, perhaps letting her know someone stole a blade from the Royal Guard armories.” Sapphire expected Maiko to explode at that insult, though he just pulled back with an evil smile.
“Very good sir, let’s go. Though I would appreciate the opportunity to get my uniform before appearing before my superior. You may escort me to the tavern in question if you wish.”
“That can be arranged, I assume you two wouldn’t mind getting dressed either, though I must insist on you accompanying us. Don’t we have a blanket or something?” he asked, looking back to his unit, eventually procuring a pair of thin woolen blankets.
“Bloody brilliant sir, how exactly do we fly with these?” Dakota questioned sounding very unimpressed.
“Uhm…”
As they were getting ready for takeoff Sapphire heard someone get a smack to the back of the head as she moved to check up on Balethon. Looking back, a slightly ashamed looking tavern guard was rubbing the back of his head, a very unimpressed woman standing next to him. ‘God fucking dammit’ she cursed to herself.
The ones who had woken up in the middle of the night broke off, going back to the tavern to get dressed in preparation for a long night. They wanted the bastards interrogated immediately anyway, even if getting interrogated themselves hadn't really been the plan. If this was the work of the Flaxens they would be doing their best to cover their tracks as soon as they learned of the mission's failure, so speed was of the essence.
“Why can’t we just be left in peace!” Dakota snapped as they were getting dressed. “Please let it just be the Flaxens so we can get them dealt with already.”
“Of course it’s them, who else could it be?” Sapphire dismissed her as she strapped on her greaves. Sapphire had a feeling Colonel Hashaw would not take kindly to this attack so she was bound to be there, therefore she needed to look proper in case they got fine company at the stockade.
Maiko had gone on to the Hashaw Estate to report back on the evening’s activities and hopefully convince Victoria to make an appearance. So Sapphire and Dakota found themselves standing in front of the stockade with a city guard escort.
It was a large, ugly building, looking like a place you wanted to avoid at all costs with its rough grey stone and metal barred cell windows lining the walls. “May they rot in here forever,” Sapphire let out as they were shown inside. She and Dakota were taken to different interrogation rooms. They were civil about it though, not even tying her up like she had feared.
The guy who had ‘caught them’ as he claimed was apparently in charge of this case. He formally introduced himself as Sergeant Lanok and set about asking questions, not many of which were intelligent. Where they were from, what they were doing here, why they had an armed escort in the middle of the night despite not even being properly dressed at the time.
He of course didn't believe most of the answers he was getting. Especially the part about being in the employ of the king at the moment, nor the whole Flaxen situation.
“What? You claim to be the target of a kidnapping attempt by a noble family, one on the council at that?! Give me a break,” Sapphire had to fight really hard not to slap him, but she didn’t want to end up in manacles, so she just stared at him contemptuously. Then there was a deep thunk that shook the building followed by creaking wood from above.
“This should be good,” Sapphire let out, leaning back with a smirk, relishing in the confusion on the guy’s face.
It took a bit longer than Sapphire had anticipated, as she refused to answer further questions, but there was eventually a knock on the door, Sergeant Lanok getting up to answer it. He was confronted by a very pissed looking Colonel Hashaw in formal uniform, Maiko and Yilditz at her back.
“You seem to have attempted to arrest one of my men and two people you really shouldn’t have. Not to mention waking both me and a decidedly grumpy 10 ton black dragon currently on your roof.”
‘So it wasn’t Baron then,’ Sapphire concluded. She doubted very much he could have been roused for this anyway, it also made sense to bring a black, they liked the night anyway. Maiko had been decent at laying out a string of insults, but Hashaw was clearly the source of his talent, as she chewed out not only the sergeant but anyone dumb enough to make an objection or not make themselves as small as they could including the captain of the Stockade much to Sapphire's horror.
It definitely helped that she was flanked by Ylditz, the person who had been tasked with finding out who the mercenaries were, as well as a few other family members. The dragon in question was apparently Tiguan, one of Jarix's training buddies. Sapphire guessed he was here just as much for a bit of experience then.
“Is there anyone dumb or useless enough in here to have anything more to say...? Very good. Where are the two who ‘actually’ need questioning?”
The tavern guards had been allowed to go, though Haiko had stuck around. The Sergeant was now looking very small as he took them to the room where the one who hadn’t been shot was sitting. The woman who had been carrying Balethon currently being treated.
“Do you have even the slightest idea how much you fucked up tonight?” Hashaw asked as she strode in the door, the sergeant holding it open for her.
“Pretty fucking badly I presume, but what the hell are you gonna do, huh? Gonna execute me, perhaps clip my wings? Doesn't matter if you’re Royal Guard or tavern guard the punishment is the same. So you don’t scare me woman or should I say… oh, Colonel, wow I really did fuck up, huh?” Well, Sapphire had to give it to him, he was taking the news that he was likely done for rather well, or perhaps he was just in denial about the whole thing.
“Oh, I can do worse than that I think. Sapphire, you wouldn’t happen to have learned a thing or two from our friend?”
“Might have done,” she admitted, thinking back to what she could remember of Tom’s escapades.
“Sergeant, what is the punishment for his crimes?”
“Well, he failed to kill anyone, hence he is charged with attempted murder and attempted kidnapping. So indentured servitude for quite a while. Unless he could pay for a prison sentence of course.”
“Right then, how about this? Tell me who sent you and I will pay for your prison time,” the colonel then went, looking to the perp. “I know you were hired to do this, so while you may be a piece of shit it’s not you that I want. Alternatively, I could start pulling strings until we get some alone time with you and make your life really fucking unpleasant.”
Sapphire looked slightly nervously to the sergeant, but he was still cowering, so she guessed Hashaw got away with threatening to break the law inside the stockade. It was a generous offer too. If this guy was going away for a long time, paying for it wasn’t gonna be cheap.
“You know my choice is death or slavery here. You can’t be dumb enough to believe they will let me live if I talk.”
“That depends on who sent you, because if it is who I think it is they won't be around to send someone to kill you after this.” Again Sapphire was fairly sure they couldn't condemn the entire Flaxen family for something like this, but hey if it works it works.
“You seriously think we take jobs directly? It’s not the client that will kill me dipshit. My boss would.” Hashaw was very clearly not pleased with that answer, as she turned to the sergeant.
“Would you agree this man is guilty, on the word of both independent tavern guards, the Royal Guard, and our two huntresses of the noble Bizmati Keep? Or do you insist on a mock trial for this piece of shit?”
The sergeant looked a tad bewildered for a second before nodding. “Yes ma’am. I’ll have him sent off to the deepest mine I can find tomorrow.”
“No, I want him handed over to the Royal Guard so we may question him as an enemy combatant.”
“You cannot do that and you know it,” the sergeant replied, finally standing up for himself. Clearly to Hashaw’s great annoyance.
“Then I want you to get me a telepath. Am I correct in assuming his rights on that matter are no longer in place even if I can’t pull his claws out?”
“Yes, but we don’t have one, ma’am. You must understand, a criminal’s mind is not exactly the kindest place to be.”
“Weak-minded cowards,” Hashaw cursed, looking away pondering. “Fine keep him here, you may continue with your excuse for questioning. I’ll be back, luckily not everyone is as weak of spine.”
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So then We have prisoners to work with once again. hopefully, they will fare a little better than the last one. then again... Maybe not. As always do let me know what you thought down below be it good bad or just generally hilarious.
until next time, have an awesome day.
​
ko-fi For having more pretty pictures commissioned.
Sapphire
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Just in case you missed it, the pancake chapter: Pancake!

Book 1 of The HEL Jumper
Year 2 of The HEL Jumper
Year 3 of The HEL Jumper
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-----
“You alright? Physically, I mean,” Russell asked as he and Thantis returned to the village alone on the shuttle that had brought them to the Forge. “The old ticker’s not going to give out or anything?”
Thantis blinked a couple times as he extracted himself from the depths of whatever train of thought had occupied him for some time. Needless to say, the trip back had not featured lighthearted education regarding the nature of Mara’s core. “It was certainly a stressful situation, wasn’t it? I thank you for doing all of the heavy lifting, Winters.” He left out the fact that they both knew he’d have been left behind otherwise.
“Don’t mention it. That’s literally the sort of thing I trained to do and you’re lighter than a fellow soldier. Would have been really nice to stick around and take a dip in the hot springs, but something tells me that goes against the new ‘don’t interfere with the planet’ policy.”
‘Not that you didn’t enjoy them to your fullest before the rest of the crew got here,’ Io reminded him with a pointed gaze. Russell cleared his throat and let that particular memory lay dormant.
“A day of rest will be more than enough. But you’re sure everything’s alright on the inside, Thantis?”
“You are kind to ask, Winters. Thankfully, my difficulties at the moment remain in the realm of the mental and spiritual. Much happened that I am having difficulty making sense of.”
“You’re not the only one,” Russell assured him as the shuttle shuddered almost imperceptibly, a friendly reminder that they were traveling through air instead of gliding through space. “At least we didn’t break the place.”
‘On the outside, you mean,’ Io clarified in an agitated tone. She was equally as upset about the day’s events as Thantis. ‘We have no idea if anything is left standing on the inside, not to mention that the robot will likely never re-activate even if the facility didn’t self-destruct or otherwise dangerously terminate its own functions. This is the worst day for science since the Lancer was lost. And that was a very bad day for science!’
“You mean other than the fact that we can get home and tell the rest of humanity what happened here, along with everything else we’ve discovered?” Russell observed sharply. “Let a team of archaeologists deal with it. Later.”
Io, who was using the B-MASS in order to be present for both Winters and Thantis, looked to the side and let out a long breath, acknowledging that the current moment might not have been the best time. ‘Yes, later is a good idea, sir. I think we should all give thanks that we will not be giving Veera or Gentia any reason to weep this evening.’
Russell and Thantis shared a look, agreeing that even if Io’s words were true, that wouldn’t be the end of it. The Jumper cleared his throat. “Yeah, no tears. But that doesn’t mean she won’t be mad as hell.”
“You are forgetting a healthy helping of ‘I told you so’,” Thantis added, finally allowing a real smile to shine through the clouds of his tested faith. “A word of advice, Winters?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Cave early and cave often,” the Cauthan said with a wink, giving Russell a hearty chuckle as Io nodded approvingly. “Among other things, I find that’s been a constructive cornerstone of my long life with Gentia.”
‘While I’m very much in agreement regarding the capitulation to the needs and wants of the important women in one’s life,’ Io began, batting her eyelashes at Russell as though he needed some sort of reminder that she was such a woman. ‘Gentia and Veera may need to wait. I just received word from the Admiral, sir. He’s on his way to the village and intends to meet us there.’
“For what purpose?” Winters asked curiously. Io made a little show of opening a letter and reading the message within.
‘In his words? Examining primary sources.’
-----
True to his word, Natori was there to greet them when Russell and Thantis’ shuttle set down just outside the western gates. Thanks to his arrival there was already plenty of commotion, adding to the hectic Cauthan harvest season as males and females both hustled to and fro in the fields, plucking ripened produce just before the point of spoilage. The tall, ebony skinned human offered his hand to Thantis as the shuttle’s doors opened upward with an audible hiss. “I am glad to see you are well, my friend. Would you believe that our esteemed colleague Qul’Roth sends his regards and wishes you ‘good health in the name of the Order’?”
‘I wouldn’t,’ Io replied immediately, nevertheless allowing Thantis to answer on his own.
“That is very kind of him. If you would convey my thanks when you return?”
“Happily, Thantis. It sounds to me as though the two of you had quite the little adventure. Lieutenant,” the Admiral addressed Russell and the two men exchanged salutes.
“That’s certainly one way of putting it, sir. What can we do for you?” he asked, waving to a villager who called out in greeting as he passed, a wooden tool for unearthing dato in his paws.
“I believe we speak to Antoth first. I admit that I may have spooked him a little by returning to the village so soon after my last departure. All that I could tell him was that something unexpected happened at the Forge, but that the two of you were unharmed. While I wait on the lead researchers and Lance Corporal Mendes to pen their official reports, I figured it might be wise to hear of events the old fashioned way. Shall we?” he suggested, sweeping an arm behind him towards the village. A particular striped Cauthan was, of course, awaiting them there. She was not pleased.
“Ah, perhaps an explanation for your wife is in order too?” Natori suggested, understanding that his presence was likely a significant contributor to Veera’s serious demeanor.
“If it’s the same to you Admiral, I think it’s best I handle this alone,” Russell replied, leaving Thantis’ side and walking up to Veera. She tilted her head slightly to maintain eye contact, her expression one of expectation as she waited for him to begin. “Listen Veera, I know it looks bad but-”
“Did you know that Fenrir’s figured out where all of the meat is stored?” she demanded suddenly, causing Russell to stick his neck out and cock his head in confusion.
“I’m sorry, he what?”
“He found me on patrol this afternoon with a chesko sausage hanging from his mouth and a very pleased expression on his face,” Veera explained, a hand on her hip. “I had to go to the temple of Valta and compensate them!”
“Oh boy. I’m sure Ratha was thrilled,” Russell responded, a nervous pit in his stomach as he considered how much mayhem Fenrir could get up to.
“She’s going to kill him if this continues!” Veera insisted. “Just please tell me you didn’t teach him to do this!”
“Why would I teach Fenrir to steal meat from the one place in town that would get him riddled with arrows?!” Russell demanded, feeling he had some small, slight justification for taking offense.
“Because sometimes you do silly things!” Veera replied as though it were obvious before visibly deflating. “We have to do something, Russell.”
“We will, sweetie. We’ll give him a bit more food at meals and maybe see about keeping some sort of muzzle on him when he’s around town. I can take him hunting again soon too,” the human suggested, silently forgiving his wife her mild hysteria. Ratha’s opinions regarding Veera and hyrven were both well known. His proposal mollified her, and she embraced him to welcome him home.
“I knew everything was alright the moment you and Thantis showed up unharmed. I suppose the Admiral being here means you will have some meeting with Antoth, but I’m glad you’re alright,” she told him. He hummed in her ear and left a quick kiss on her cheek.
“Yeah, things didn’t go as planned but everyone made it out safely. If it’s all the same to you, I think when this is done I’d much rather focus on making sure our pet doesn’t become a pelt,” he replied.
“As long as you admit that I told you so,” Veera said. “That place was obviously nothing but trouble from the very beginning.”
‘Are we going to continue overlooking the part where we can safely travel back to Earth now?’ Io demanded, having observed the married ‘spat’ for long enough. Veera’s eyes widened in surprise.
“We can… you did it?” she gasped.
“I sure as hell didn’t,” Russell clarified quickly. “But something happened that deactivated whatever process was going on in there. Io’s right. The warp point is clear and at some point soon I have to imagine Natori is going to take his ship home.”
Veera found herself caught flat footed by the news, looking down at the earth beneath her feet as a sudden trepidation struck her. They had talked about Russell’s eventual departure many a time over the seasons she’d known him, but it was always a hypothetical, an occasion far down the line. That line seemed soon to end. “So I… have to leave?” she questioned.
“Veera, I need to go meet with Antoth and the Admiral. When I’m done we’ll sit down and have a long talk about this, ok? If things have changed and you really want to stay, there may be a way to do that,” he explained.
“But your family! Your parents!” Veera exclaimed before cutting herself off, noticing Thantis and Natori waiting at a polite distance for them. “You’re right. Please don’t take long.”
“We won’t. Where’s the little troublemaker now?” Russell wondered.
“I sent him off into the forest after his little snatch and grab. So he’ll probably be back for dinner.”
“Count on that hyrven to never miss a meal. Alright love, I’m glad you and he are ok. See you soon?”
Veera took his hands in hers and nodded. “Offer Antoth your guidance, Russell. You are the only human he can trust.”
Though Russell’s first inclination was to protest, he couldn’t help but acknowledge the fact that even someone as forward and open as Natori could possess his own interests and agenda. He hummed low in his chest and agreed with a nod of his head. “I will, Veera.”
-----
“Walk me through it one more time?” Antoth requested, running a hand through the feathers atop his head as he, Thantis, Russell, and Natori were seated within the temple of Kel. Xan was there too, finding himself in the position of scribe as Thantis was an involved party in the Forge incident.
“As I said, Antoth, the Cauthan made from metal visited us while we were exploring the main chamber,” Thantis recounted. “It was clearly female, given the plumage, but how such a thing could possibly exist is beyond me. I am unsure whether it was a servant of Kel, Tyrdus, or neither. While there were many of us there, it chose to approach me specifically and attempted to communicate. I, regretfully, did not understand anything it said to me, either with its voice or its feathers.”
“Yes, I got that part,” the chieftain clarified in a patient tone. “It is what comes afterward that puzzles me.”
“You’re not the only one,” Russell agreed before allowing Thantis to continue the tale from his perspective.
“I attempted to speak to the metal being, requesting information about its nature, which of the gods it served. I believe I mentioned Kel and Meylith specifically, Antoth. When it replied to me it was no clearer than when it first spoke, but I do believe it was a reply instead of some unrelated statement.”
“Because it repeated the word Kel to you,” Antoth finished.
“Precisely. That is when a great many things began happening all at once. Spirit Io tells me that some sort of invisible disturbance began within the Forge, something powerful. The entire place began to shake violently, and the great weapon that the humans believe was causing the corruption plummeted into the abyss below. It was then that the metallic being collapsed. I attempted to revive it, or at least ascertain what had happened but the humans deemed the situation too dangerous at that point. Winters carried me from the facility as I was unable to move fast enough.”
Antoth glanced over at the Jumper. “I find myself in the position of thanking you yet again, Winters. However, given that Thantis would have never been in danger in the first place if not for your discovery, I will not go so far as to say either of us are in your debt.”
“That’s the least of my worries, Antoth, but thank you,” he replied as Natori spoke up.
“Antoth, I believe that certain subjects we have discussed in the past must now be brought to the fore again. While departure is not imminent, as soon as my crew determines we can safely leave your planet we will begin preparing a timetable to do so. Assuming your invitation to my crew regarding your harvest festival still stands, I think it would be a crime to pass up such an opportunity for cultural exchange. Once it is concluded, I cannot envision a scenario where we remain much longer.”
“I understand,” Antoth said, adjusting his posture as he stretched and stood sternly near one of Thantis’ many shelves full of dried herbs and scrolls. “My invitation to your people remains, however I reserve the right to revoke it at any time if I feel there is a need. I think we should table that discussion for another time. Right now I need to ruminate on the situation at hand. Kel refused to open his gate to your people, even Winters, but he did so for his servant among our own. This is… a curious omen.”
Russell shook his head in discomfort as Io began to practically vibrate with excitement, causing a bit of feedback in his earpiece. Having dealt with her, he addressed the two leaders. “Antoth, I’m happy to stay if you wish but I should get home if not. It sounds like Fenrir was up to no good today.”
“I don’t know about it and assuming the situation is under control I’ll be happy not to know about it,” Antoth replied, making it clear in his tone that he expected Winters to exert said control over the situation. “If Thantis and I need to speak with you we will find you.”
“Understood. Admiral Kaczynski, sir?”
The Admiral instead looked at Antoth. “Is there anything else you wished to discuss so long as I am here?”
“The food situation,” Antoth replied immediately, glancing at Xan. Natori nodded.
“I must admit that over the short period of time since we last spoke I have not received any updates myself. However I would be happy to escort Xan or someone else from your village up to the Event Horizon to inspect the current crop personally.”
“Then you should go, Xan. If we will not receive armor or weapons we should at least ensure this food is suitable when grown far from Mara’s soil. Will there be any issues?” he finished on a considerate note.
“No Antoth, I’d be happy to. I should grab a couple of things and let my family know where I’ll be though,” the young scholar explained.
“Very well, you are dismissed.”
“My shuttle will be waiting at the western gate,” Natori advised the young Cauthan. “First Lieutenant, I do not wish to keep you too long but I would appreciate it if you and Io would accompany me that far.”
“Yes sir,” Russell replied, seeing no reason to protest. “Selah, Thantis. Today was quite the adventure.”
“I shall remember it for the rest of my life,” Thantis agreed, his customary demeanor returning as a ‘smile of knowledge’ spread across his muzzle. “And while that may not be a particularly strong statement, I am sure that you will as well. Go in peace, everyone. Selah. Shall we summon the others, Antoth?”
“Not yet. Let us speak privately,” the burly Cauthan requested, indicating that he no longer needed the other three individuals in the temple. Xan packed up the scroll he’d been scribbling on and departed for his family’s home to the north while Russell and the Admiral headed west.
“Is your wife the only Cauthan with an understanding of English?” Natori began.
“So far as I know, sir,” Russell replied in a guarded tone.
“Excellent, then we can dispense with some of the secrecy. What is your opinion on taking this village back to Earth with us?” he wondered. Io was visibly restraining herself from answering for the both of them, but her opinions on the matter were obvious. Russell was more defferential.
“I think that’s a little bit beyond my pay grade, sir. On that subject, however, I need to know if there will be any problems in taking my wife aboard when we leave.”
“Yes well, if we take them all along with us I see no reason she couldn’t come too!” Natori replied in an almost obnoxiously upbeat tone. “The formalities and paperwork will be handled either way in her case, Lieutenant, I assure you. But I do not wish to discuss formalities and rules today. I can do that with men like your father once we return home, and I get the sneaking suspicion there will be quite a few of those conversations. Your gut feelings on the situation will suffice.”
“I’d be worried about them if we left them here and I’d be worried if we took them along, assuming such a thing is even possible and they agree to it” Russell replied. “For every Cauthan like Gentia or Thantis who might jump at the idea, there will be Cauthan like Ratha who will surely object.”
“Undoubtedly,” Natori agreed. “But the conditions are such that they will be forced to answer that question, assuming my staff comes back to me and deems such a mission possible. From a human perspective, it is a clever workaround of many of the objections from our Ghaelen guest, objections that will be more difficult to ignore once he is returned to his people.”
‘Since simply removing the village from existence was his enlightened idea in the first place,’ Io quipped, using vicious air quotes to append the word ‘enlightened’. Natori chuckled heartily, waving cordially to a couple of farmers who looked their way at the noise.
“In defense of Emissary Qul’Roth, I am not sure I want to know what happens to Ghaelen who defy the Order,” Natori suggested. “But per your evaluation, Io, I see no reason not to make it our enlightened decision instead.”
“A decision to do what, exactly? Take them home and just turn them loose in a random city? Keep them in an HEL compound for years?” Russell demanded. Kaczynski stroked his chin.
“I need a shave I believe. And count on the Jumper to immediately identify all the ways in which a situation could go wrong. Before you object, I approve of the approach. Though if you’ve already moved on to that point I presume you would generally be in favor of the translocation?”
Russell organized his thoughts as the two men passed through the central square of the town, considering what it might look like in various settings he’d visited back home. “At least if they came with us and needed help I’d be able to do something.”
Natori looked at Winters out of the corner of his eye. In truth, the Jumper was not used to speaking with people taller than him. An uncomfortable reminder of days gone by being scolded by his father gave way to a desire to see the man again. “May I ask what you were planning to do upon returning to Earth, Lieutenant? If you remain at your current post I’m not sure you would be any more able to aid these Cauthan than if we left them here.”
That feeling of familial absence returned as Winters shook his head. “I didn’t give it much thought when I was aboard the Lancer, sir. Once I was here, worrying about it seemed pointless. I guess now’s the time to think about it again, but life’s already moved past that. Not sure I’ll leave the HEL, but when we get I’m going to turn in my wings, so to speak. The Jumper corps don’t need fathers. Doesn’t mean I’m not proud to have served as one of humanity’s most heavily armed bachelors.”
Natori laughed earnestly at the description. “Children really do change everything, don’t they?”
“You would know far better than I, sir. I’m just making assumptions. I want Veera to come with me, and that if she does I need to come home each night for several reasons. I normally wouldn’t talk to someone like you about these things, but I’m sure you’ll be in charge of accepting or denying that request when the time comes,” he added, trying to keep his tone from being standoffish. Natori seemed to find the comment entertaining, so he figured he’d succeeded.
“Yes I suppose it was a deviation into rather private affairs. You have my apologies, Lieutenant. You and your sister are so different, but I can see your father in the both of you. I cannot make any guarantees, but I will do what I can if you’ve decided that your future lies outside of the Jumper corps. If things play out the way I expect them to, you and I and Io may have a mutual interest in such an arrangement, lest you think I’m somehow trying to play father.”
“Thanks for the assurances, sir,” Russell replied shortly, only broadening Natori’s smile.
“Youth is wonderful, is it not? In any case, you have something like six months to consider these questions, plus however long it takes us to get our affairs in order and depart this planet. With the threat from the alien installation apparently gone, my curiosity as to its nature has only increased.” Natori paused for a moment before snapping his fingers as he remembered something. “I need an after action report from you within the next twenty four hours, Lieutenant. I am aware that you have duties that go a bit beyond those of the average Event Horizon crew member, but given the magnitude of the event you just bore witness to, I need to review evidence from every angle, every perspective. There is no telling what the twenty or so of you might have seen or not seen.”
‘Done,’ Io replied, making a show of procuring the necessary video and audio files along with a written report that literally materialized atop her open palm. ‘Anything else?’
“You’ll let me review it first before it’s sent to the Admiral,” Russell insisted in no uncertain terms. “And later, I want you to make sure Xan is alright when he’s aboard the Event Horizon. Veera and I need to talk things over.”
‘Yes I suppose you do,’ Io agreed, filing away the materials she’d produced for his review. She waved politely at Natori. ‘Admiral, I will speak with you again some other time.’
“A pleasure as always,” he replied before her projection winked away. “Thank you for your time, Lieutenant. I will be fine waiting for the young apprentice before heading back. In the coming days and weeks I hope you will keep in mind that I value your opinion as an expert on the Cauthan, even if I make decisions that conflict with your sensibilities.”
Russell took a moment to think through his reply, knowing well enough that the Admiral was not trying to patronize him. Natori took that time to look up at the gatehouse, nodding appreciatively at the construct of wood and packed dirt. “As long as you aren’t making decisions to appease the Ghaelen, sir, I can’t see myself raising any objections.”
Kaczynski hummed shortly in reply. “Fair enough. You’re dismissed, Lieutenant.”
Winters saluted silently and turned to head off along the road to the north, wondering how many more times he would walk along the rows of crowded homes, blockhouses, and rough drainage trenches.
----
The evening’s dinner preparation was a mostly silent affair. The crackling of firewood and the sound of a knife against wood, vegetables, and meat were comforting as he reviewed the full contents of Io’s report on the Forge incident. Every so often he made annotations, correcting Io’s propensity for flourish and embellishment. It had been a long time since he’d had to deliver such a report, and Io obviously found military language to be boring and trite. Between the two of them they soon had an acceptable product to send up to Natori’s bridge, along with the footage from his helmet cams. Task completed, Winters was free to address the question that had been hanging over both him and Veera for the entire afternoon. She was clearly as eager, or perhaps as nervous, as he, and he found her scrutinizing him from over the cooking pot.
“Hey there, I’m all finished,” he began, standing and moving to her side. “Do you need any help?”
“No, all of the heavy lifting is done. Just need to let it simmer for a while,” she told him, knocking a wooden spoon on the rim of the pot before taking a seat on one of their chairs. He joined her. “Your people will leave soon, and you’ll have to go with them.”
“Yeah, they will,” Russell agreed, taking her hand in his and giving thanks that they wouldn’t be beating around the bush. “I do want to go back, Veera. I haven’t seen my parents or my two other siblings for…”
Veera watched as her mate fell silent, his face looking far older than his actual age of twenty five as he counted the months. “It’s been too long, hasn’t it?” she asked compassionately.
“The Admiral managed to get them here in about three months, but I don’t think he would push things that hard on the return trip. All told, even if we left tomorrow and didn’t make any detours, it would probably be more than two years total by the time I get home. And for at least half of that time they’ll have lived without knowing whether I’m alive or dead.”
“It was clearly very hard for Alice,” Veera agreed, recalling the tearful scene from the bridge of the Event Horizon. “And she got to see you long before they will. You know I’ll still go with you, my love.”
“I know,” he affirmed, looking at the flames as they licked at the blackened exterior of the pot that had served them well for many months. “But I know things have changed here too. I know there’s a lot you would leave behind now so… I think we should talk.”
“About what, Russell?” she inquired. “I’m happy to talk about anything with you. We even vowed to do so in sight of the Mother, but it sounds like our path is already set.”
“Maybe, but when we get to Earth things need to change,” he explained. “I can’t… I won’t get sent off on another mission like this. Even if you weren’t pregnant there would be a question, you know? But now there’s no way I want you following me around on military ships, and no way I’m going to leave you after you give birth. So… I’m going to have to figure something else out. Even cabins in the mountains don’t build themselves, and the life of a recluse isn’t the sort of thing I’d want for our kids.”
To Russell’s surprise, Veera purred and nuzzled his cheek. She teased him gently. “Look at you trying to plan out our entire lives. I would never say no to you being in less danger.”
Russell placed an arm around her shoulder and rested his head against hers. “Is there a ‘but’ in there somewhere?”
“I was trying to be accommodating,” Veera pointed out. “But I would feel awful if you gave up something important on account of my pregnancy. It’s not like we planned for this.”
“No, we didn’t,” he agreed seriously, sitting up in his seat and rubbing the back of his neck. “But that doesn’t change the fact. Besides, there aren’t many people who remain soldiers forever. Even people like my father eventually take non-combat roles and desk jobs. It might not go exactly the way we expect, but I’m sure I can work something out within the HEL if the civilian life just isn’t for me.”
“Then it sounds like we don’t have much to worry about in terms of our family,” Veera summarized in a relieved tone before casting a glance at their entryway. “I will miss them, though.”
Russell exhaled and looked over at Io, taking up her usual perch at the foot of their bed. He raised his brows at her and she shrugged in return. “I might as well ask your opinion on it then,” he said.
“On what?”
“This is something Io and I have been thinking about for a while but never with any seriousness. Apparently Alice started thinking the same way and made a proposal to both Natori and Antoth the last time the two of them met.”
“Is that where you were called to?” Veera wondered quietly, taking a spoonful of stew and blowing on it until it was cool enough to taste. Satisfied with the blend of flavors, she grabbed two wooden bowls and began serving them both. “What is it that Alice was contemplating?”
“From the sound of it, taking you and every single Cauthan in this village back home with us to Earth isn’t a flight of fancy,” Russell explained. Veera paused with a ladle full of stew halfway between the kettle and her bowl.
“I- what? Is such a thing even possible?” she demanded aghast. Russell nodded, propping up one ankle on the opposite knee.
“Way I understand it, the Event Horizon is running with a skeleton crew, at least so far as non-military personnel are concerned. When they learned they were coming after me, that my ship had been lost, a lot of people who could chose to stay behind. There’s plenty of space so long as your people can handle space travel. Obviously we’ve already experimented with that a bit.”
“But why would they take us in the first place?” Veera asked suspiciously. “Here, eat while it’s hot.”
“Smells wonderful, thank you,” Russell replied, making sure to take a large bite and savor it for her edification before going on to explain some of the reasons humanity might see a vested interest in taking her village along. “From what I can tell it would actually resolve a sticking point with the Ghaelen regarding human influence on the village. The other reason, honestly, is that we want to.”
“And when we can no longer feed or clothe ourselves because we have left Mara we will be at your mercy,” Veera pointed out suspiciously. Io felt the need to step in at that point.
‘That is true, Veera. However what humanity can offer you in exchange would far exceed what you would lose. Imagine a world where one Cauthan, in someone like Anita’s position, could grow enough food to feed the whole village!’
“That sounds like a good excuse to sit around and grow lazy and fat, just like Vash,” Veera spat. Io recoiled indignantly as Russell waved his spoon her way.
“She’s got a point there, you know. Hey boy, get over here and sit! I heard you were bad today!” Russell commanded, distracted as none other than Fenrir chose that moment to arrive home, having no doubt followed the smells of cooking fires throughout the village. He ruffled the hyrven’s fur roughly before providing him with a plate of pre-cut chesko meat. It was a bit bourgeois to cut their pet’s steak, he knew, but both he and Veera considered bite sized pieces preferable to Fenrir flinging his dinner about the house like a barbarian intent on painting the walls red.
‘Now that the beastie has his dinner and I can defend myself, I can tell you that many humans choose to work jobs like those found at the temples of Tyrdus or the Twins, making things instead of growing things. That might not be a difficult transition. Even more choose to live like Thantis or Alice, devoting their lives to knowledge and its pursuit. And yes, per your conversation with Russell all the way back when you first met, there are some who engage in creating pornographic material and every other profession in between. Based on the amount of garbage I’ve scrubbed from the Event Horizon’s intranet there will be a market for Cauthan smut when we return to Earth one way or another, but I’d rather space my main processors than ruminate on that for too long. You are right, Veera. Being lazy, indolent, and fat is a temptation when you live in a land of plenty, but I think it is better than starvation, death by raider, succumbing to treatable illnesses, or freezing to death.’
“Not to mention there are plenty of human communities who prefer to keep to what they consider to be the ‘old ways’,” Russell added. “I’m not saying anyone’s given the logistics serious thought, but the idea is out there now and it’s not just me and Io who would want to see you all paid back for letting me live here and keeping me alive.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that we would be giving up our freedom and putting our lives in your hands, Russell,” Veera pointed out. “I choose to do so on account of our bonds of marriage and because I consider you to be a male who does not think in such terms. That doesn’t mean that this village will be treated the same way.”
Russell was unable to brush her concerns away, knowing that he was far from the most senior HEL individual in the system anymore. He didn't foresee any issues with the Admiral honoring the union he shared with Veera, but he hadn't exactly married the rest of the village. "I know, but it's not like Io or I would abandon them. I'm not worth much, honestly, but you've seen what Io can do when she doesn't get what she wants."
'I resent that,' she told him. 'You act as though I saw the Event Horizon and thought give me the shiny ship.'
Russell and Veera looked at Io quietly, chewing over tenderized pieces of chesko. She eventually backtracked. ‘Well don’t blame me for having the ability to do both at once! Besides, it’s not even that shiny.’
Veera laughed pleasantly as she reached over to scratch Fenrir between the ears. Between the slowly waning cooking fire and his dinner the hyrven was already headed for dreamland. “I appreciate the sentiment, Io. I know that you and Russell would not abandon us, but that will not make it any easier, especially for people like Ratha and Antoth.”
“That’s a bit of an understatement. I wouldn’t be surprised if it proved necessary to drag Ratha kicking and screaming into a shuttle,” Winters added, finding the image amusing. “Ah well, like I said it’s really not a decision that any of us get to make. I just wanted your perspective. I guess it’s probably a scary concept more than anything.”
“Yes, it is,” Veera agreed quietly. “And unlike me, they do not have someone like you to lean on.”
“Fair enough. Hopefully we can get a few set up like Xan, familiarize themselves with the ship at least. Sounds like Natori could use help and you all have five fingers, an opposable thumb, and are of approximately human height,” Winters reasoned. “Speaking of which, why don’t you head on up, Io. He should be aboard already. I think we’re just going to clean up dinner here.”
Veera waved her feathers in understanding as Io nodded and killed her projection. ‘I suppose I could check back in on my various VI monitoring subroutines as well. As you say sir. I will return later tonight.’
-----
“By Kel this place is big,” Xan complained, walking through corridor after corridor aboard the Event Horizon. He’d returned to his normal weight so he figured he had to be somewhere close to his destination, but with every turn he only seemed to find yet another sign featuring vibrant green and yellow symbols showing him the way to the hydroponics bays. The Cauthan let out an audible groan of relief when he stepped into a larger hallway and found a sizable green arrow pointing at a set of bulkheads several times his size. He could not yet read the human runes painted within it, but he recognized the location well enough. Clearing his throat and composing himself he walked up to the doors and made to knock, but found his plans foiled as they simply opened on their own and a synthesized, female voice faintly reminiscent of Io’s own welcomed him to the hydroponics bay. “Hey, Anita?” he called out, facile enough with English to use at least one word. He smiled as she poked her head around the corner of the door to her office, her long ponytail hanging most of the way to the floor from her seated position. She was confused to see him, which confused him in turn.
“X-Xan?” she stuttered. “What are you um, doing here?”
The Cauthan leaned heavily on his cane, putting two and two together before letting out a long sigh of realization and clicking a talon on the floor. “You know, if you’d prefer to work for someone who doesn’t enjoy surprises, Antoth would be happy to have you if you can grow food for us. He’s a similar color too, so that wouldn’t be much of a change, right? He wanted me to check in and see how things are going up here. Guess Natori didn’t give you a warning?”
“No, he didn’t,” Anita confirmed quietly, unsure whether to find humor in the idea of working for Antoth or trying to explain to Xan that it was the height of rudeness to remark on someone’s skin color in such a way. In the end she sat in silent embarrassment as her stomach betrayed her and growled audibly. Even with his mangled left ear Xan was able to pick up on it just fine.
“I have a place to sleep up here so maybe let’s get food first? Not like I’m in a rush or anything. Well, I actually can’t rush much of anywhere these days,” he quipped, pointing to his gimped leg. “I don’t really know my way around so… or was I interrupting something?”
Anita couldn’t bring herself to say no, so instead she zipped up her jumpsuit, grabbed her tablet, and ensured the automated subroutines were all green before tucking her chair neatly away at her desk. “So, ah, how have you been, Xan?” she asked politely, leading the way from her usual haunt to the hallways that would take them to the civilian canteen. The Cauthan kept a sure pace, his cane accentuating his progress. He chuckled to himself as he summed up the events of the prior cycle in one word.
“Busy.”
-----
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Obligatory
Get ready to read.
I’m gonna preface this and state that I sat on this decision for 6 months before I decided to pull the trigger.
I don’t play video games anywhere near as much as I used to. This reliable workhorse sits on a desk untouched almost always. I don’t need this much computer anymore. I’m emotionally attached to it, but I’ve decided I’ll let someone who will use it more than I do enjoy this setup.
Basically, this is a total shot in the dark and probably won’t go anywhere, in which case, I’ll keep it. I don’t need to get rid of it. I’m looking to trade my entire rig - PC, monitor, keyboard, mouse, headphones, all of my games (which I’ll give you access to) for an entry level NOD setup. Obviously this rig could only net me an entry level tube. Looking specifically for a PVS-14 and laseilluminator. I’m a little disconnected from the PC market so I don’t even know if this is worth typing up, but we shall see.
This rig has handled (in excellent fashion) everything that I’ve ever thrown at it, whether it was games, video editing, etc. I’ve clocked far more hours than I care to admit on it and it does the job every time. If there’s a major title that you want, chances are, I have it. Cyberpunk, Modern Warfare, Rust, DayZ, Escape from Tarkov, blah blah blah. I can send you the full list of the +200 games I own if we actually strike up a deal.
The full spec list is here. It’s pretty dead on, minus prices of things here and there, and some of the storage missing from the list.
(Disregard the prices a bit, the PC market is F’d up just like the gun market is. Chances are, if you’re thinking about doing this trade, you know what this stuff is)
Ideally, I’m looking to trade 1:1 for a PVS-14, although I may be dreaming. I’m no NOD expert and I’m quite new to this rabbit hole so by all means, let me know what you’ve got. I’m willing to add cash if I need to but not a ton. I figured I’d get my foot in the door with this post.
For those who understand moderate technical speak:
I’m the sole owner of most of this stuff. Nonetheless, it’s always been maintained and taken care of and will be cleaned and wiped if we make a deal.
This rig his been ran at base clock speeds its entire life. The CPU, GPU, RAM have never been OC’d outside of benchmarking. I can provide CDIs for every drive on the computer. I still have the box for the GPU and motherboard. The monitor is 3440x1440p ultrawide with a 100hz refresh rate. Switches in the keyboard are MX Browns. The headset has Dolby 3.1 surround sound. No onboard WiFi, I’ve always been hardwired. The CPU is indeed the anniversary i7 8086K which I bought as a flex when it first came out. Windows is loaded on an SSD, there are 3 other SSDs minus the boot drive along with 2 HDDs.
I’m willing to drive ~3 hours anywhere to meet. I’m in South PA. You’re not going to want to pay to ship this, so local is best.
Photos (feel free to ask to see anything else)
Trade value to appease the bot: $2,700 $2,000 after reviewing feedback.
Steam profile (not all games are on Steam)
Profile value
Any questions, technical or not, feel free to ask.
​
Seems like I was off the mark. Thanks for reading.

I recently ended up doing some reading regarding Lung's reputation, in part because of a piece of fanfic I read, and in part so that I could characterise him for a work I've been planning. I was aware that fanfic tends to exaggerate Lung's reputation (The phrase "Dragon of Kyushu" is entirely fanon - Your average person in Brockton Bay has no idea that Lung fought Leviathan), but I hadn't realised how bad it was.
My actual read, having done some skimming for Lung's appearances, and discussions about him, is that Lung is, if anything, massively underestimated by the population of Brockton Bay. I'm kind of just throwing this out there so that someone can shout out if I've gone too far the other way, because there's no easier way to get information than being wrong on the internet.
Taylor serves as our 'Joe Public' character for parahumans. She's pretty ignorant on the cape scene (She didn't really think about how Armsmaster was a Tinker until she was talking to him) and she needed Trigger events explained. As a general rule of thumb, it seems safe to take her as somewhat representative of the general public. And how does she rate Lung?

How was this monster not an A-Lister?

Taylor definitely doesn't think much of Lung. When she first encounters him, she's explicit that she doesn't consider him an A-lister. But what's interesting is that she actually uses this terminology elsewhere. Uber and Leet get described as 'barely even' B-list. Grue and Bitch were 'marginally successful B-list villains'. That seems to be the tier that Lung gets sorted into. He's a villain she's heard about, and the leader of a big gang, but she doesn't seem to treat him as a big deal, personally. She's shocked by how powerful Lung is when Lung is only about 8 feet tall. That's nothing compared to his actual potential, and it's still more than she expected him to be capable of.
The PRT & Protectorate don't seem to view Lung that highly, either, despite numerous fanfics depicting Armsmaster or the Wards expressing shock that Taylor took him out. Officially, he's a Brute 4-9, which means that they think he can be defeated by a squad of troopers, so long as they do it at the start of a fight. He's officially not even worth sending parahumans up against if he's not already ramped up.
And the villain scene don't seem to respect him that much either. In the confrontation in Hive, we see Kaiser use his power to lock himself, Fenja and Menja into a building with Lung, with the intent of killing him. That seems to be going pretty well, because Lung tears down a wall to escape, and stumbles on to Skitter. Once he does, Kaiser refuses help from Skitter

“Step down, Undersider,” Kaiser spoke from the opposite end of the room, “My girls and I have this in hand.”

That's a level of confidence that is entirely incongruous with fanon Lung. At this point, Lung is 15 feet tall, he's got wings and he's almost definitely the second most powerful parahuman in the Bay in a straight fight (Beaten only by Noelle), and Kaiser (who is meant to be a smart guy, IIRC) still thinks he can take him.
But then, the Undersiders don't seem all that scared of him either. Fanfic likes to present them as desperate in the face of Lung coming at them, but that's not really the vibe you get from the actual text.

“When we got word Lung was aiming to come after us tonight, we were pretty freaked. We were arguing strategy for the better part of the day. We eventually decided, fuck it, we’d meet him halfway. Wing it. Not my usual way of doing things, but yeah.”

That doesn't read terrified to me. "Pretty freaked" is still relatively mild if Lung is treated as a massive deal. And, at the end of the day, their plan was for a team with only one heavy hitter to fight him.

"Anyways, point of this explanation is this: Knowing we had an imminent fight with Lung coming, knowing Lung planned to pyrokinesis our general area until he rooted us out, got civilians to finger us or brought in enough capes to make life difficult for us, I called Coil. He said he’d help, told us to wait five minutes, then take the more direct route, straight into the heart of ABB territory. We go, we take out a contingent of ABB gangbangers and scare off Oni Lee. Then I get a call back from Coil. The other reality? We left earlier, went a different route. Got in a fight with Lung before you showed. You decided to attack both our groups while we were occupied fighting each other, worn out, only Lung was stronger at that time, too strong for you to do too much. By the time you realized you’d have to work with us to stop him, which wasn’t long, it was too late. Lung was too tough."

There's two interesting bits in here. One, Lung would need to 'bring in' capes to make it difficult for the Undersiders. Lisa doesn't think he's enough on his own, apparently. Two, Coil didn't use his power to help them escape. He used it aggressively. At least one split was dedicated to two separate attack plans. And sure, maybe he gave them an escape route after closing the first timeline, but I think it's telling that he was willing to use his power and the Undersiders so aggressively. If he thought they were entirely outmatched, a 5 minute head start doesn't seem like enough.
His record is also not as clear as fanfic tends to make it. We know from Ward that he managed to beat the local Protectorate team, with 10-15 minutes build-up time. But, we're also told that he's been beaten repeatedly.

According to the wiki, Lung had apparently suffered a number of minor defeats at the hands of various teams, ranging from the Guild to the local teams of New Wave, the Wards and the Protectorate, but consistently managed to evade capture until last night.

I'm interested in hearing more about him being beaten by New Wave, the Wards and the Protectorate. Is that all at once? Or is it that he's been run off by the Wards on their own at some point?
There's a comment from Wildbow that emphasises his low ambition:

Lung has a high classification but a relatively low level of ambition. He had one powered minion (until early 2011 when he recruited Bakuda) and sought primarily to hold the docks as his territory. He ruled like a lesser king, had prostitutes and sex slaves, a protection racket and drug dealing, but he wasn’t fighting for a footing downtown.
For all his (potential) power, he’d settled into a role as a street thug and gang leader.

Overall, my conclusion is that Lung is vastly more powerful than Brockton Bay gives him credit for, but because he sticks to the poorer areas of town and doesn't contest the prime territory, he's more significant as "the leader of the ABB" than he is as a parahuman threat. The impressive thing that Skitter did wasn't beating him in a fight, it was doing it in such a way that he was there long enough to be arrested.
On the other hand, Worm is big and I can guarantee I've missed some things.

“When did they arrive?” Maggie appeared through the blizzard like a ghost, her footsteps and profile having been hidden by the sheets of snow and ice falling all around us. I didn’t jump, and once I realised she was looking at the cigarette in my hand, I merely nodded and offered her one. She surprised me by taking it and we stood quietly, eyes fixed on the spot on the horizon where we knew the ship was lying perfectly preserved.
“I had HQ send a drone over with more appropriate supplies,” I said.
“So we’re definitely staying then? Sebastian must be beside himself,” Maggie replied, following it up with a quiet chuckle.
“He’s certainly looking itchy,” I replied. “But personally I’d be fine never looking another piece of suet in the eye.”
“Utter torture,” she groaned, shaking her head. “I’ve been jogging ten miles every morning since I was 17, but these last few days have been something else. He just thrives off it though, doesn’t he?”
“It’s his schtick,” I replied. “What he does. He only agreed because he thought we’d never find the damn thing, and it’d be two weeks of solid trekking through Arctic winter. But he has his own fund-raising to do, and he needs to work up interest with littler treks like this one.”
“5000 calories a day,” Maggie said. “I don’t know how anyone could do it for fun.”
“Well at least the new supplies are better suited to camp-life. Plus,” I gestured with the cigarette in my hand as it burned down to the final few embers, “we can slip in a few little amenities now we don’t have to haul every last pound behind us.”
Maggie took a final draw and handed me the butt when she was done. I had an empty can of coke I was using to keep them in, personally unwilling to throw them willy nilly onto the ground.
“The ice is safe,” she told me, dropping a bomb like it was nothing. “In fact, it’s a few miles thick. We’ve just got the full satellite data through and… well, it’s quite intriguing.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“It’s not alone. There’s something else a day’s hike North. Hard, hollow, and big. I wanted to double check before I told you. It’s certainly a very odd finding.”
“Well we’ve got the ship to explore for now,” I said. “If Sebastian feels like it, he can burn off some calories checking out the second signal.”
I watched Maggie disappear back into the grey wind before returning to my own tent. Sitting down on my cot I contemplated the news she’d just delivered. My eyes drifted to the horizon again and again as I turned the words over in my mind. The ship was safe to board. The ship I’d spent years writing about, publishing papers on, researching… Hell, there was a scale model of the damn thing in my living room I’d made by hand as a young post-doc.
The Pinafore was lost with all hands during a barely discussed attempt at finding the Northwest passage. Standing at 80 feet long it was a Caravel, and thus one of the first European ships capable of Oceanic crossings. I’d spent years postulating that it was still frozen in the ice, just like the infamous ghost ship, the HMS Terror. A comparison I happily played up after the success of the fictional novel and tv show based on the lost Franklin expedition. One wealthy benefactor later and I was equipped with more money than my whole department had seen in years, along with the testy, but experienced, guide Sebastian. And somehow, against all odds, we found it after a brutal 7 day hike. Ever since I’d first spotted the mast from miles away, I’d been vibrating with barely contained excitement.
Knowing it was out there just waiting, well… I had no hope of getting to sleep. I stood up from my cot and grabbed a torch but kept it off, letting my eyes adjust to the dark as I checked camp for any signs of life. Certain that I was alone, I began my walk. It wasn’t a long way to go. We’d camped a few hundred metres away to keep clear in case the ship was at risk of cracking the ice, unlikely as that was. Still, it was dark and I got turned pretty bad after a few minutes. Even with my torch I started to feel the first twinges of panic, but I kept at it until, after twenty minutes of nervous fumbling, I finally saw the mast once more.
It was a barely glimpsed shape in the dark, a patch of white overhead that caught my torch and made me jump. Lowering the light brought the rest of the ship into view, and for a split-second I was dumbstruck with awe. The ship was close enough to nearly touch, and while I’ve seen bigger ships before and since, something about it made me feel breath-takingly small. It was as if the groaning of the ice beneath my feet belonged to the ship, and not the weather, like it was some great nautical beast crying out to me.
This ship had left shore in 1543 and never returned. And yet the word Pinafore was still written along its side, engraved in gorgeous detail on a plinth as long as I am tall. And right there, just a few feet away, was a ladder that enabled entry. I tried the wood and could have cried when I found it held my weight. I got two rungs up before I fell back down and bloodied my lip on the hull. I didn’t let it stop me. Even as the weather threatened to freeze me to the spot, I clumsily forced my way overboard and collapsed onto the deck shouting my laughter into the blizzard.
No one would be able to hear me anyway.
The ship was like black volcanic rock encased in glittering ice. Here and there bits of rigging and wood jutted out, so cold I’d imagine it would tear the skin right of my hand if I touched it. I marvelled at the sight of it all and made a slow and deliberate circle of the deck, letting out a tremendous laugh of joy when I saw the helm was still intact, wheel and all. I thought I would stop there but as the minutes ticked on it wasn’t enough. And when my foot caught the trapdoor that leading to below deck, I found my hand moving towards the latch before I’d had a single conscious thought.
It wasn’t easy to open, taking maybe an hour or two. But all things considered, it wasn’t as hard as it ought to have been. And when the door finally slammed open, landing on the deck with a terrible thunderclap it revealed a set of steps descending into total darkness. At the sight of it, I felt a small catch form at the back of my throat. The rigging of this ship had been snapped, the beams and masts broken and gouged, the wood splintered…
I was walking into a tomb.
The arctic is an alien place, the geography profoundly different to what we’re used to. Great obelisks of glistening white rock rise metres into the air, walls of snow lie ready to collapse, and a landscape rendered in pure blank white appears to the human eye as faintly abstract, almost surreal. The ground is not solid rock, but floating ice, and below it lies one of the most hostile and unknown oceans in the world. An ocean that is forever ever cut off from sunlight.
I took one last look around at the starlit deck and descended into the ship, the roaring wind fading to a whistle as I ducked below. The stairs led to a small hold with a single corridor that carried on to the fore of the ship where I knew I’d find the captain’s quarters. My intention was to head right there and ignore the little things along the way, except what lay in wait for me in the hold was no little thing.
I screamed when I first saw the head. It was a gaunt, eyeless, leathery thing twisted into a frozen grin of pain. A gnarled hand reached out towards me and I let out another shriek and fell backwards, sending the torch spinning out where it finally settled on the monstrosity before me. The scream died as I realised slowly that the thing was not moving, and it was not a single thing. A dozen heads lay crammed together, arms and fingerless hands shoved out in awkward angles, as if they were desperately groping for something that lay just out of reach. It was a pile of bodies, their limbs and torsos interwoven in a bone breaking display of torture and mutilation.
I let the mortal terror drain away but lost all desire to stay for a moment longer. I grabbed the torch with quivering hands and turned back towards the way I came. That was when the hatch slammed shut, and I found another scream of terror rising in my throat.
-
“Couldn’t have called me?” Craig said as I sat shivering under a foil blanket. I was clutching a small cup of hot chocolate, which Craig supplemented with a shot of Brandy when no one else was looking. I thanked him with an appreciative nod. “You know I would have given anything to be there with you,” he added.
“Then you’re as stupid as he is,” Maggie said, stepping down onto the ice as Sebastian started to follow her. “If I hadn’t wanted another cigarette I would never have realised you were missing. You’d have been trapped in there all night with that thing.”
Craig looked at Maggie and she nodded.
“Holy shit,” he said. “I’ve gotta go look.”
“Let him,” I said just as Maggie went to stop him. She rolled her eyes but let him go and Craig rushed off, catching Sebastian just as he took the final step down from the ship.
“This could have gone so much worse,” she said, expecting no reply. I imagined that would be the end of the matter, and I looked up eagerly when Sebastian sidled up to join the conversation.
“I uh… I owe you a bit of an apology there David,” he said, looking a little too pale around the edges. “When I heard you screaming, I thought it had been the hatch slamming shut and you were just scared. But Jesus, that is… no one wants to be locked in the dark with that thing. What the hell is it?”
“The crew?” I suggested. “Shame we didn’t bring any biologists with us.”
“Your toys can help with that, right?” Sebastian said. “You’ve got drones coming and going so often we could set up a department store.”
“We can take samples and return, maybe set up a video feed,” Maggie replied. “As a meteorologist, I definitely feel a little out of my wheelhouse. What about you?”
She asked me the last part, and I tried to think of whether anything I’d ever encountered came close to what I saw in the hold of that ship. When nothing came to mind, I shook my head.
“One fucked up Christmas tree,” Sebastian said with a dark laugh and I felt a shiver run down my back at his words. It really had resembled some kind of tree, and I filed the thought away in my head hoping it wouldn’t pop back up the next time I put my own tree up in my living room. “Hey,” he cried. “Maybe you can hook the drones up to it and just fly the whole thing back to town.”
Sebastian really didn’t like the drones. If he’d had his own way he would have had has doing the expedition with dogs and seal-fur boots just like his ancestors.
“That reminds me,” I said. “Maggie has something to show you. I think you might like it.”
-
We were told the worst thing to do was to touch or move it, so we didn’t. The mountain of frozen flesh and withered bone was obscured from view with some make-shift curtains Craig threw together, and we carried on working like it wasn’t there. Craig and Maggie took photos and made an inventory of every object we could find, carefully labelling and categorising each tong and blade for later expeditions. I tried to pour through these items to find something that might give a clue to the ship’s final fate.
A dozen or so men crewed the ship in its prime including a surgeon, a cook, a smith, and a cartographer. We found faded broken letters that spoke of mothers and wives, small figures sculpted from whalebone, and ancient bottles of homebrewed spirits stashed away under pillows. The ship’s surgeon and resident scholar even had quite the collection of shells that he’d carefully labelled. Here and there we also found a patch of floor stained suspiciously in the dark, or a blade embedded in a door or wall, but we tried to ignore the implication of violence.
The captain’s quarters were… well they were odd. I concluded that the ship had disappeared close to Christmas given the sprig of holly fixed to the ceiling. A small concession the captain had made to the season. But the desk was smashed in two, rope and twine lay all around the floor, and drag marks were visible along the wood along with a few scattered fingernails. There was also a discharged musket under the desk, along with a solitary half-gnawed human finger that lay close by. In the doctor’s quarters I saw that the cabinets were bare of the usual oils and tinctures employed at the time (useless as they would have been), though his diary spoke of nothing spreading amongst the crew.
There was a lifetime of work, and the details we captured guaranteed more funding than I could have ever imagined. We had our ghost ship, we had our thrilling and creepy details, and we had one great big inexplicable pile of corpses that would boggle some of the greatest researchers in the University. It was a little scary, but otherwise it was good news.
Sebastian had departed the day before and checked in regularly for the first twelve hours or so. After that he went silent, which we put down to the poor weather or his general single-mindedness. At the twenty-four-hour mark Maggie became a little itchy, and when she pointed out the silence to Craig and I, we found ourselves sharing her concern. We decided to try calling him on the radio and waited silently for his reply.
What came was a discordant series of clicks and heavy breathing.
“Sebastian?” Maggie asked. “Are you okay?”
But there was only the strange hiss of the radio broken by the occasional breath or scrape.
“Sebastian?” She cried. “Please respond!?”
We tried for hours until, eventually, his radio stopped returning any signal. Craig figured it may have died, or maybe Sebastian had turned it off and started ignoring us. But something about the strange noises had left us all feeling a little nervous. Maggie suggested that he’d just activated the radio by accident and we were hearing the sounds of his walking, but the breathing felt close and ragged, almost-animalistic like a man approaching death. Still, it was the best theory we had, and we agreed to wait a little longer.
The following twelve hours were tense. Eventually we stopped working and returned to camp, where we tried to contact Sebastian with a more powerful radio and updated HQ to let them know. The ship that trailed us along the coast sent a few drones over the area Sebastian was meant to be and reported no visible signs of the man. No big surprise there, we figured, given just how hard it’d be to find anything in the tundra. But the pit in my stomach grew heavier with each hour that passed without us hearing back from our guide.
After 48 hours it was decided we’d have to go look for Sebastian ourselves. We were moderately experienced in hiking and the spot shouldn’t have been more than a six hour ride away. It was Sebastian who had insisted on making the journey by foot, always eager to push himself to the limit, and chances were it had led him to some kind of misfortune.
-
“Is that a door?” Craig asked.
“I think it is,” I answered.
Maggie was on her hands and knees staring at the door that was no taller than my waist and embedded in a snowy banking. I reached out and rubbed away the ice and snow around the doorframe revealing a wall made of crudely stacked slabs of wood as thick as my torso.
“Who the fuck put a door here?” he asked.
“It goes deeper,” Maggie replied, hands cupped around her face as she peered through a small window set into the door. “I think I can see stairs going down.”
“Are we sure Sebastian was here?” I asked.
“Almost definitely,” Maggie answered, holding up a small shred of blue fabric that had been jammed into the door frame. It was the same unmistakeable baby blue of Sebastian’s wind-breaker.
“He’s not the only one,” Craig said, reaching into the snow to pull out a wooden knife bearing the Pinafore’s seal. “Looks like our ancient explorers came this way as well. And I don’t think it ended well.” I took the knife and noticed a faint trim of rust-brown red spattered along the edge.
“We’ll have to mark our path for the future,” I said. “And GPS tag this whole area for full excavation at a later date.” Maggie nodded and took the knife to add it to our inventory while Craig and I worked on opening the door. It took a little effort, but quickly popped open and swung inwards with a spine-tingling squeal.
The building had a roof so low we had to duck. The beams above us were roughhewn trunks with still-visible bark preserved by God-knows-how-long spent in the arctic tundra. It was a like a makeshift cabin, the kind of thing you’d find in the Canadian or Nordic wilderness. It had the sturdy appearance of Viking construction, and Maggie noted a few strange runes stitched across the inner doorway that I couldn’t translate or properly recognise, but they seemed faintly familiar nonetheless. The room itself was a good twenty by twenty metres with a worktop that ran along three of the walls. Maggie shuffled over and picked up one of the stools that was tucked neatly under the countertop, and holding it up, she showed it to be no bigger than my forearm.
“What the fuck?” she muttered.
“Is this a fucking joke?” Craig cried, calling our attention to a small wooden object he held in his hands. It was a hedgehog, or a carving of one, with little wheels instead of legs so it could be rolled along the ground.
“Could be some kind of fetish,” I mumbled, swallowing a knot of anxiety in my throat.
“It’s a fuckin’ toy!” Craig cried, laughing at the ridiculousness. “Is this some kind of prank Dave? Is this some fucked up PR stunt by the University because if it is, I’m not going to be happy.”
“I don’t know what this is,” I said. “But I’m not in on it, and if any of you are I’d appreciate you saying now.”
“Sebastian, maybe?” Maggie said, a quiver entering her voice. She was holding up one of his shoes, the fabric half torn, and the insides splashed with still wet blood. “Maybe this is all his doing? He was assigned to us by the University.”
I knocked a fist against the wall and I realised I could shatter my hands against that wood and not put so much as a dent in it.
“Seems elaborate for a prank,” I said. “We should work on the assumption that Sebastian needs our help. And if this is a joke, we can kick his ass afterwards.”
“Amen,” Maggie replied, and together we walked towards the nearby stairs. Footprints were visible in the thin layer of snow that had drifted into the building over the years, and we knew that if Sebastian was near then he must be somewhere below.
-
“I haven’t seen this before,” Craig said. “This kind of material.”
He was holding a toy horse crudely put together out of basic cylinders and squares. The material that covered it was a velvety sort of leather that was strangely soft despite the ice cold temperature. He turned it over in his hand and we both noticed a faded blue patch. I watched him squint at it for a few moments, and I reached out and gestured for him to put it down.
“What is it?” he asked ignoring my suggestion.
“It’s Erasmus,” I said, my voice a little hoarse. “The patron saint of sailors. You should put that thing down.”
“Why would someone paint that onto a toy?”
“They wouldn’t,” I replied. “But they would almost certainly have tattooed it onto the arm of a 16th Century sailor.”
His eyes went wide and he dropped the toy with a disgusted cry.
“Fucking hell!” he cried.
“That’s not all,” Maggie said. “I think this is bone.” She held up a small carving of the baby Jesus, no larger than my thumb, made out of a yellowing ivory. “Any guesses as to where it may have come from?”
“Many arctic cultures make carvings out of seal bone,” I suggested.
“How many of them make fucking toys in a workshop built for hobbits!?” Craig cried. “Am I the only one who wants to pin the tail on the donkey and make the connection here?”
“Do you have any ideas?” Maggie asked, looking over towards me.
I shook my head.
“Maybe an old European colony,” I said. “Someone came out here to try and… I don’t know. Some religious fanatics maybe? Someone who wanted to recreate the myth?”
“Out of human skin?” Craig asked. “And where the fuck is Sebastian?”
The floor we were on was a lot busier than the last, crammed full of desks and tools for woodworking and carving, many of which lay strewn about the floor. Somewhere below us the walls must have collapsed and that was where the ice was coming from, as the snow that covered the floor was noticeably thicker here than above. We found no obvious sign of Sebastian except for some signs of disturbance amongst the snow that led, once again, to another set of stairs descending into darkness.
-
“That bodes poorly,” Craig muttered.
Sebastian’s ice-pick was embedded in the floor up to the hilt. A few strands of hair were still threaded around the blade, along with some coils of rope identical to the kind in the Pinafore.
“As does that,” Maggie said, gesturing to the Christmas tree. Not only had the toys in this part of the building grown more demented, depicting men with huge phalluses and women tearing their breasts open to reveal ribs and lungs and hearts, but an ancient, withered tree stood dominating the centre of the room. Its limbs were decorated with withered black prunes and charcoal rope that would have been familiar to anyone who’s seen what centuries of decay can do to frozen human remains. The baubles were organs, the tinsel intestines, left out to freeze dry over centuries of exposure. One of the baubles, however, was fresh, making red velvet slush of the ice below.
“What is it?” Craig asked.
“I think it’s a kidney,” I said. Steam was rising from the dripping piece of offal that sagged from the tree branch. “It’s still warm too.”
“The eyes on that doll,” Craig said, swallowing nervously in the cold. “Do they look familiar to you?”
I turned to the toy he was staring at, its haunted face lit up by the intense beam of his torch. Its expression was remarkably well carved, seeming almost life-life were it not for the obvious colouration of hardwood. The eyes, however, were far too human, and the irises a crystal blue that was, indeed, quite familiar. Unable to ignore his curiosity, Craig reached out and gently poked the glassy orbs.
Only they weren’t glassy. They were soft. And Craig’s finger came away with a faint trickle of viscous fluid that lingered on his skin.
“They’re still warm too,” he gagged. “Oh God they’re his. They have to be!”
-
We did, eventually, find Sebastian. He was alive in a sense, although on his very last breath. He had been cracked open like a Turkey and left to air in the freezing cold. His skin and bones were pulled apart with expert precision, his face a pallid mask of terror. He was conscious but could only wail and cry. Blinded and terrified, he initially tore his hand away when Maggie reached out and took it. He was naked, seconds away from freezing to death. And Craig almost draped his coat over him instinctively but stopped at the realisation it would be resting directly on top of his exposed chest cavity.
He was alive for no more than a minute as we crouched there. He did not speak, no matter how often we asked our desperate and frightened questions. The only sense we got of what he was going through was the relief that passed over his face when he finally died, as if he had awoken at last from a terrible nightmare and was free of the terror.
“I thought ol’ Nick was a saint,” Craig said, wiping the snot and tears from his face after we’d all had a good cry. “If this is his workshop it’s a pretty fucked up place.”
“Could be some lunatic who’s settled up here,” Maggie said. “Some serial killer with a demented Christmas fixation?”
“Doesn’t explain the sailors,” I replied. “The knife by the door, the tree, the toys so clearly made out of their remains. How could that be a serial killer?”
“So what are we saying exactly?” Craig asked. “Santa’s elves went off the straight and narrow? Is that it? What the fuck does any of this even mean?”
“Does it matter?” Maggie replied. “We need to get Sebastian back to basecamp and then we need to get out of here, ASAP.”
“Sebastian might not be an option,” I said, looking over the still steaming remains of his corpse. “I don’t know about you but I don’t want to spend another second longer in this place. And as awful as it might seem, we have to weigh up our responsibilities to the dead against our responsibilities to the still living.”
“You mean us,” Maggie said.
“Yes.” I nodded. “I mean us. We won’t help him by hauling him up four floors and across fifteen miles of open Arctic tundra. But we can at least make our lives a little easier by getting on with it and calling in help as soon as possible.”
“What are we going to tell them?” Craig asked.
“We’ll figure it out,” I replied.
-
We returned to camp a few hours later, taking a few of the less-terrifying artifacts for testing. The ride back was a silent and eerie affair, and Craig mentioned more than once he was thankful it was still light. We managed, with some effort, to get back just as the sun was setting. Watching the approaching night cast a dreary gloom across the magnificent tundra, I found myself agreeing with him. All of us wanted to be somewhere safe, somewhere secure. And the thin tents of our camp offered little enough protection against the elements, let alone whatever else may lie beyond. But they were the best that we had. As if to emphasise this point, when I arrived I noticed them flapping in the wind and dreaded the night I’d spend int here.
“How long till the secondary team arrive?” Maggie asked.
“A few days,” Craig replied. “We could ride out ourselves using the snowmobiles but I don’t fancy my chances without Sebastian. Not to mention…”
He left his words hanging in the air. I knew what he wanted to say. Not to mention whatever else may be out there.
“It’s going to be a long wait,” Maggie said.
“It is,” I replied.
-
We all spent the night in the same tent, listening to the storm pick up until it felt like we were an island alone in the endless dark. At one point we were woken up to the sound of something outside, and we waited carefully until it stopped. I don’t remember when I fell asleep, but it must have been late. I couldn’t have slept more than a few hours before Maggie was shaking me awake to the blinding light of morning.
“David!” she cried. “Craig’s gone! He’s gone! I can’t find him anywhere!”
I threw myself out of my sleeping bag and crawled out of the tent. In one swift movement I took in the destroyed equipment and torn open tents. Something had come sniffing through our camp, and it hadn’t stopped looking until it found what it wanted.
“Do you think it was a bear?” Maggie cried. “With the ice shelf melting they’re coming farther and farther in land every year and there have been more than a few—”
She stopped when she saw me bend over and pick something up. I held it up for us both to see – a piece of rope made of rough-hewn twine unlike anything we’d brought with us. It was an exact copy of the kind I’d found lying around the Pinafore and the floor of the workshop, except this one was stained with a bright red patch of blood.
“Fuck,” she whispered. “Where do you think he went?”
The storm had cleared up and the morning air was so crisp we could see the mast of the Pinafore all the way from camp.
“You don’t think…?”
“I do,” I said. “Look, the snow is disturbed along the path. Maybe if he was lost or confused and got lost, he might have relied on the markers we left to find his way to the ship.
“You know what Craig would say right now, don’t you?” Maggie asked. “He’d say that’s bullshit.”
“Let’s hope he’d be wrong,” I replied.
-
We were half-way there when we found the box. It had been gift-wrapped and left alone in the middle of our path, its top clear of snow. Small footprints, the size of a child’s, led away from it back towards the Pinafore.
“This is too weird,” Maggie said.
I bent down and noticed the name tag etched with meticulous cursive. Wilcuma Géowineus, it read.
“Welcome old friends,” I said, doing my best to translate. “It’s Old English.”
I pulled on the twine that bound the plain brown paper around the box, and the whole package unwrapped with elaborate ease. Each face of the box fell down one by one, and Maggie let out a terrible cry.
“Oh God!” she shrieked. “What the fuck!?”
It was Sebastian’s head, his mouth stuffed with blood-sogged straw while his hollow eyes glared at us with terrible pain.
-
“Craig,” Maggie cried, her hands cupped around her mouth as she yelled into the open door of the Pinafore’s deck. “Craig!” There were no more gifts lying in wait for us aboard the ship, and no sign of our friend on the deck. At one point I nearly told Maggie that he was probably in the hold, where it’d be safe and warm. But the words died in my throat. I couldn’t keep clinging to such a hopeless idea.
“Come on,” I said weakly. “Let’s head down.”
The hold was unchanged since we were last aboard. The pile of corpses entwined in a desperate orgy of violence still stood over everything else in the room. Something about the eyeless faces burned its way into my skull, and once again I wondered how exactly they’d suffered such a horrible fate.
Maggie and I were silent in our search for Craig. I couldn’t bring myself to cry out for him, and neither could Maggie. It felt useless, and some small part of me kept telling myself to stay small and quiet, hidden from view. Don’t call attention to yourself, it said. Don’t cry out.
We checked each one of the ship’s rooms – every quarter, every hold, every cupboard and closet. Until at last we both converged on the Captain’s quarters, and our breath caught in our chests as we noticed the door wide open. Craig’s clothes were in a pile, a few metres past the threshold.
“Craig!” Maggie cried, rushing forward. I nearly joined her, but at the last second some flicker of motion stopped me. Before I could warn her, Maggie she was on the other side, reaching down. The door slammed shut and by the time I reached the door, a distance that was barely two metres, she was screaming in unspeakable pain. It was a gibbering howl of terror and agony that filled me with such horror I could feel the corners of my vision blur and turn black. My muscles became weak and my stomach damn near fell out my ass. As it was, I could feel a warm stream of urine trickle down my thigh and calf. I wanted to push on. I wanted to slam into the door with all my rage and strength and rescue my friends. But my legs betrayed me. They screeched to a halt and before I even realised what I was doing, I had turned on my heels and was fleeing the other way.
The strangest plan formed in my head. I can’t say how or why it came to me, except that in the end it was probably the only that saved me.
The pile of corpses, as horrifying as it was, was large enough to allow entry in some places. One place in particular came to mind. A small nook, barely large enough for a person. But I went for it, sprinting into the room and crawling on my stomach backwards so as to slide underneath the mountain of rotten bodies. The feel of ice cold fingers sliding along my trouser leg, hooking on pockets and poking my chest and back, was enough to nearly make me cry out. And when one of those fingers broke off and lay resting on the back of my neck, turning moist and clammy from the warmth, I had to fight to keep myself from vomiting.
I managed to wrench a few arms free of their place and covered myself as best as I could. And then I lay there, suddenly aware of the terrible deafening silence of the ship. The weight of my decision to flee settled in during the long seconds, and I was forced to reflect on the piss that was still soaking into my underwear.
I could have been there hours, or maybe just minutes. In the scheme of things it was but a moment although it didn’t feel like it. Eventually something sounded out from the corridor and I heard the terrible squeal of a door swing open. Awful voices spoke in an ancient Germanic form of old English, turning my stomach with the sound of phlegm and inhuman cadence. Whatever I saw move past was not a human, I can say that for sure. But neither was it in my field of view for long enough for me to say what it was. I think there may have been two. I’m not sure. I may have blacked out because the next thing I remember was Maggie’s face glaring at me with terror. She was gagged with straw, just like Sebastian had been, and her eyes had been brutally carved out. Except unlike Sebastian she was sweating and shivering, occasionally letting out a small trembling cry of confused pain. I know it’s impossible, but I swear she was looking at me. I swear she knew I was there…
She started to thrash and it amused her captors. One of them approached her seizing body and, still laughing, bent down to stick a small red bow to her forehead. It muttered something to its friend and together they hauled her towards the ladder. I couldn’t see what happened next, but I never saw her again. There was no sign of her in the ship, or anywhere else. There was some rope lying on the deck, and I imagine she was bound and hauled up to be taken back to the workshop.
I was in there for two days and eventually hypothermia got the better of me. By the time the second expedition arrived and pulled me out—screaming in terror when I’d first cried out at the sound of their voices—the bodies around me had started to freeze to my skin. It tore away like duct tape leaving long stretches of black necrotic flesh lying beneath. Two fingers on my left hand were gone, two on my right. I still have respiratory problems and my remaining fingers have lost all but the most basic coordination. Which, at the very least, has put an end to my smoking habit.
My story wasn’t exactly met with the warmest reception. The official story is that Sebastian became lost hiking to the second signal—which was determined to be nothing more than a fluke according to later scans—and without a guide the rest of us succumbed to hypothermia and suffered severe delusions. Blood-soaked snow along the base of the Pinafore raised some suspicion, all of which was aimed at me. And in the end I had to leave my post at the university after rumours that I’d killed Craig and Maggie in a deranged moment of cabin fever refused to die down. I don’t think it helped that when I’d first awoken and pulled my face free of the frozen wood beneath me, I left a chunk of my right cheek behind. I still look ghoulish, scaring even myself when I look in the mirror.
I don’t celebrate Christmas anymore, that’s for sure. Not that it matters to some people. As we approach yet another jolly season I’m forced to revisit this terrible adventure again and again. And now as if to make it worse, someone has been having fun at my expense.
I received a gift – a plain wrapped box with a familiar twine wrapped around it in a neat bow. It was small, far smaller than the one that had contained Sebastian’s head. And it opened to reveal one of my missing fingers, quite likely left behind when they tore me out of my frozen tomb. I thought it would stay there, a little piece me locked forever in that nightmare hole, frozen stiff to the side of some medieval sailor. There was even a little tag.
Êow Winstre Ðês, Géowine.
The words sent shivers down my spine.
You left this, old friend, it read.

This happened before the coronavirus was a thing in case you’re wondering. Obviously right now we’re staying in as much as possible and supporting local business through take out and delivery.
So this was over a year ago and my wife won’t let it go. I’m looking for some external input. I took my wife to our favorite local spot for her birthday. Everything was good as usual, but we had a server neither of us had seen before with a somewhat striking appearance: she was completely bald. Normally I wouldn’t say anything about something like that because I’m afraid of being rude, but toward the end of the dinner the server made a joke about she and I having the same haircut (I’m bald).
I said something along the lines of, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m curious. Are you bald by choice?” It turns out she was, which was a great relief to me since I didn’t want to pry into it if she was sick or involuntary bald for some reason. She was more than happy to talk about it and told me all about how she’d always loved bald heads and wanted to try it. She said she got positive feedback and just kept her head shaved. I told her I loved that and I thought women could look very beautiful bald even though it’s not something you see often. I told her she had a great head shape for it and joked about offering razor recommendations. It was light conversation and that was the end of it.
For the rest of the meal my wife was silent. I could tell something was wrong. When we got to the car, there was a moment of pause between us and I asked if something was wrong. She replied, “Are we going to stop at Walgreens and pick up some clippers?” I asked her what she meant and she said obviously since I was enthralled with our server’s shaved head she had to do something to win her husbands attention back. I was “blatantly” flirting with our server, apparently. It spiraled into a huge fight with my wife accusing me of wanting to experiment with an exotic-looking woman because I was tired of my boring old wife.
I can’t deny that in the moment, I probably looked like I was flirting with our server. It was not intentional, but I guess I realize how it could’ve seemed inappropriate at my wife’s birthday dinner. I did find her attractive, but my wife will always come first. I’m attracted to her and I love her. That’s why I married her. Even now she makes little references like “I guess I’m not as interesting as a bald goddess” or “Does this look good on me or do I need to show some scalp?”
So am I the asshole for this? I just want things to be okay. I’ve tried apologizing but nothing will stop it.
EDIT: I’m starting to see people making comments that seem to indicate it is never okay to talk about balding in public. I reject this completely. I did not bring this up out of nowhere; the topic came up when the server pointed out (in a jovial fashion) that she and I had the same haircut. It was a brief conversation with zero negative or uncomfortable vibes, and when we left I said bye to the server and she pointed at her head and gave me a little thumbs up. I get the feeling we would’ve got along well as friends. So this isn’t the issue.
EDIT 2: Good grief you guys, let me clear something up. My wife is 25 and I am 24. The server looked older than both of us, probably early 30s. So anything saying in flirting with a younger woman is wrong. Also my wife suggested I don’t find her attractive anymore which is completely wrong. Why would I marry someone I didn’t think was capital H O T?? She’s plenty attractive.
I’m reading everything you’re sending and it’s split down the middle as far as I can tell. All I can tell you is please read carefully. No one was trapped in a conversation with me they didn’t want. As I said the server got my attention as we were leaving. Do you get the attention of people you’re glad are almost out the door? Also I don’t remember the conversation down to the last detail but it was maybe a minute tops. Hope this gives things a little more clarity.
EDIT 3: Lmao yall I see my post got tagged. I don’t know if that means they counted or what but I guess what I’ll do is apologize to my wife in a more formal way and see if she’ll tell me why she’s been bringing this up over and over. She doesn’t even seem mad anymore really, it’s just coming up every time she talks to me it seems like. And I never addressed it but I already apologized sincerely right after this happened last year. And again numerous times. I don’t know how I can do it any better.
Also yall are ridiculous! I got two messages saying I should get divorced by her immediately and one person said it was evidence of some kind of crime and I should be in jail! Yall I can’t with that one, but thanks to everyone who gave me reasonable input. I guess when this many people see a post I’m gonna get a few unhinged people. I will make a update if I ever get to a solution if this sub is okay with that.

Update: over the weekend I decided to investigate further, since the more I thought about it, the more I realized that while the text message convo previews I saw gave me a bad feeling, they also didn't give me definitive proof of anything. As a reminder, I had to briefly borrow WS's phone to turn our alarm off last week and on the Messages app main screen I saw one "what you up to" sent on a sat night from an unknown (to me) name, and another alone the lines of "wowwwww" from a name I recognized from the DDay 1 period (a former co-worker).
Well, late night I took a deeper dive and it was eerily similar to DDay 1: emailed hotel reservation info for a work trip to a known former AP (just prior to covid), attempts to coordinate similar meet-ups with other known former APs around the same time (funny thing is they actually seem like they tried to turn WS down lmao), straight up pornographic snaps sent as recently as December 2020, a deleted Snap conversation with a DIFFERENT known former AP (another former co-worker) where all I could see was WS had sent "hi" a few days ago. The "what you up to" text convo was deleted. Snap seemed like it's regularly deleted as there were only two active convo threads, both with the conversations erased except for one word greetings. But I saw numerous x-rated snaps under "saved snaps" or whatever. Can't tell who they were sent to, but it sure as hell wasn't me...
I feel bad bringing you all bad news, and I assure you this wasn't pain shopping. But I had to be 100% certain before making more definitive moves to break away. This locked it for me. There is no ambiguity around what I found. I can't keep rationalizing this, trying to ignore it, or thinking of how I/we can "solve" this problem. I tried. I'm done being the stable one, the "rock," while my WS continues to blatantly lie day in and day out. I regret not getting out immediately post-DDay 1, but my second best option is getting out now. Will keep you posted with more positive developments when I can. In solidarity with anyone else out there reading who finds themselves in a similar position...
​
Hey all,
Longtime lurker, first time poster here. Burner for obvious reasons and mildly anonymized account, maintaining core details. If you'll indulge me, I'm putting it all down for cathartic purposes.
My DDay was almost 3 years ago. At that time, I had been married for almost 3 years when I found out my wife had been cheating on me routinely. In the months prior to finding out, my spidey sense had been growing increasingly suspicious that *something* was up. Like many of you here, I made the mistake of trusting my partner so readily, so instinctively, as I assumed we were rock solid.
Sure, our marriage had its issues. But they were challenges that we handled together and in many ways bonded us uniquely. We were in our mid-20s when we met in a fast paced east coast city. We were both aspirational, optimistic, and truly loved each other. We just clicked from day 1, the kind of thing you think will never happen until it does. We spent as much time together as possible. It was crazy in the best way.
But after just a couple months, things got a little turbulent. We had a child together, unplanned, and this was at a young-ish age (at least by east coast urban standards). So our relationship from then on was generally defined by stress, but also by having each other's back. We went through a lot together in terms of navigating our families (both lean conservative so the unplanned kid was a challenge in various ways, for example). We had some real trauma bonding. The feeling that, at the end of the day, we come back to each other.
While our trauma bonding was strong, our "normal" relationship bonding wasn't the best. How could we have the time? Both starting our careers while juggling child having/rearing, it was nearly impossible. I started a master's program, in retrospect probably in a fit of anxiety about the other stuff going on in my life. Once that started, I officially had almost no free time. We were just completely stacked.
The thing is, the day-to-day of our newfound stressful life was actually pretty ok for me; I had had a fun college and early-20s post college experience, so I was pretty ready to settle down. I didn't need any more happy hours than I had to go to for professional purposes. I was pretty stoked on the dad lifestyle, truth be told.
But my spouse was in the opposite camp. Her entire life had been heavily regimented due to controlling parents. Minimal social life even through her mid-20s, constantly under their thumb. So once we were married and I realized the dynamic at play, I made it a point to ensure that she could go out on a Saturday night w/ her girlfriends or whatever. Her friends, I'd met and generally liked. So I'd stay in and take care of the baby, maybe write a paper or something. Sometimes I'd even have to cover for her with her parents (who ofc lived around the corner) who might ask me why she wasn't answering her phone; I'd say she was already sleeping. Mind you, I had no FOMO whatsoever as I felt like I'd been there, done that, while for her, she still had that social itch to scratch. So I encouraged her to absolutely go out and have a good time. As a working mother with a stressful job, I *wanted* her to go out and blow off steam.
The cheating essentially took 2 forms: physical cheating (ONS) with complete randos she met at bars (when out on those saturday nights with the girls), and EAs with people she knew, usually coworkers. These were happening simultaneously. From what I know, there were for sure multiple (4+) ONSs, and at least 2+ in the EA/coworker category (sexting, basically). I don't think the latter ever turned into the former, but it is hard to say. Honestly, when you're talking about multiples of 5+, it starts to lose meaning.
I was so so rocked on DDay. It was a thing where I was about to go to bed and saw her phone go off. I'd had the creeping suspicion so I caved and checked. Boy was I in for a surprise at the scale of what i found. Christ.
I was then in the final semester of my master's, working on a research-intensive thesis. Hardest few months of my life getting that done after finding out. We went to MC pretty quickly after and I actually felt her remorse was genuine. She ended up getting diagnosed with some psychological conditions stemming from her tough upbringing, which were framed as the big reason why the cheating happened (among many other behavioral effects). I was willing to analyze the situation very holistically, and it truly did make sense. So I swallowed my pride and decided to work to stay together. For our child above all else.
In the short term, things got better. Sex life improved, I finished school so had more time, and it felt like we could be more open w/ each other. After a few months, we decided on a fresh start across the country to a state we'd both wanted to live for a long time. Away from her parents, away from our past life. Things felt new and hopeful.
First 1+ year went pretty well in the new state. But just before the beginning of the pandemic I had a bad feeling again. She'd been hanging out with some friends of friends who didn't give off the best vibe. Eg, they liked going to strip clubs and were pretty into drugs, albeit in a state where pot is legal. They were into other non-legal stuff too. I'm not judgmental but I just got a bad, untrustworthy vibe from them. I started to notice that she became more guarded again with her phone, just like 2 years before. Spidey senses tingling big time, but I lived in denial for a bit. Didn't want to say it was so even though I knew something was up.
Then one night we were playing an online drinking game (this is like early April mind you, so the Zoom boom heyday) and literally sitting right next to me, I saw her sending hearts and such to someone via text. Some of the unsavory characters mentioned in the last graf were present. It was so out in the open. It turned out to be a rando friend of friend who was on the video call on the other end. She said she sent him hearts because she wanted drugs from him, that's all, nothing to worry about, it wasn't serious, etc etc. Talk about a red flag...
So she said that she'd lay low on the drugs, and she did for a while. But in the past couple months, I noticed a slow uptick again. Starting to talk more with some of that crew again. It seemed to go hand in hand with the phone guarding, but I didn't initially think as much of it as I might've previously for a couple reasons. E.g., she would openly offer to ask if I'd need to use her phone in random circumstances, such as to follow directions in the car; she didn't used to do that. That made me think that maybe I'm overthinking again and she's just texting a random normal friend; she is pretty addicted to the phone in general, so it wouldn't be a shock.
But this came to a head the other night in a weird way. We have an alarm system that is controlled from our phones, and my phone died while it should've been charging overnight (guess it wasn't fully plugged in). I had to go downstairs immediately as the dog had to go out, so I had to use her phone to turn off the alarm. I'll be honest, I braced myself before I opened the phone. I was nervous of what I might see. Well, I caught a glimpse of the Messages screen - not even clicking on an individual conversation, but seeing it among the active apps. And I saw at least 2 convos that were not good.
One was a person whose name I recognized from a few years prior (DDay-era), a known prior sexting partner with whom there is no other known relationship. I could only see their latest message, and it said something to the effect of "wowwww." AKA, something you'd probably send in response to a pic, IMO. Or certainly something suggestive. And I saw a random name - definitely not a known friend - with a "what you up to" message sent the night before, a Saturday where was out with some friends. And this was just in the top 4-5 convos, so who knows what lies beneath...
I couldn't bear to actually click on the app and see what else I might see. I was re-gutted. I've been gutted multiple times now, to the point that it's hard to feel much. But damn, I felt it again, that gut punch feeling. Many of y'all know it like no one else in my life, so here I am sharing it with y'all.
Really struggling with what to do next. I've been in IC previously so thinking I can at the least start that up again and from there, think about my next steps. But damn if I don't feel like this is the beginning of the end of our relationship. I spent the past 2 days trying to act normal while plotting my escape, something I'd never done before. But I think it has to happen. I have to preserve my self (sic).
I apologize for the dire outlook as I do believe rehabilitation and rebuilding are totally possible in the right context. People do make mistakes or make decisions that aren't totally rational. I even experienced a brief rehabilitation and even improvement in my own relationship it in the short term. So if you're someone working toward change post-DDay, I want you to maintain that positive change and happiness *is* possible. I have no doubt about that.
But at the same time, you have to trust your gut. If it feels off in a bad way, then it might be time to jet. It hurts, but it is good to realize that at the end of the day, you can't change other people. They have to change themselves, and if they don't, then at some point your best option is to change yourself. I think I'm nearly there.
Thanks all.

“What’s all that?” my friend Aaron asked as he followed me down the steps into the basement. He was referring to the tattered rows of cardboard boxes stacked in the corner.
“That’s my grandfather’s junk,” I said, making my way to the couch. “My dad had to clean out his house when he died and didn’t have time to go through it so he shoved it down here.”
“Sorry, dude,” Aaron said, offering his condolences. That was the first time he had heard about my grandfather passing away.
“Don’t be,” I said, grabbing the remote and turning on the TV, “I’ve never met him.”
“Seriously?” he asked, taking a seat on the opposite side of the couch.
“Seriously,” I replied, handing him one of the video game controllers, “My dad never talked about him. I didn’t even know he was alive until my mom told me he had died last week.”
“Did you go to the funeral?”
“There wasn’t one,” I snapped. I was starting to get annoyed with Aaron. The reason I had invited him over was to play video games, not talk about my dead grandfather. “You ready?” I asked, lifting my controller.
“Let’s do this,” he replied, thankfully dropping all talk of my grandfather.
We spent the next three hours blasting our way through a dystopian landscape, killing hordes of demons and other hellspawn.
“I need to take a break,” Aaron said, setting his controller down after being beheaded by a demon prince’s sword, “My thumbs are starting to cramp up.”
He got up off of the couch to stretch his legs while I continued playing the game, trying to make it to the next save point. I lost sight of him as he walked behind the couch and didn’t know what he was doing until I heard a loud commotion behind me. I quickly paused the game and turned around to see what had happened.
“Sorry,” Aaron apologized, standing in the middle of a bunch of my grandfather’s things. The stuff had tumbled out of their boxes when he caused one of the stacks to fall over. “I’ll clean it up.”
“What the hell, man?” I exploded, dropping my controller onto the couch as I got up to see if he had broken anything.
“It was an accident,” he blurted out, “I just wanted to see what was in the boxes, but I accidentally bumped one with my knee, and then the whole stack fell over.”
I knelt down next to one of the boxes, righted it, and then began putting stuff back inside of it. “Come on,” I said, “We need to hurry and clean this up before my parents see it.”
We were nearly done when Aaron stopped and held something out to me, “Check this out,” he said. In his hands was a tattered boardgame box whose corners were held together by masking tape.
Large red letters, made to look like blood smears, spelled out the name of the game: The Tell-Tale Heart. Beneath that was a cartoonish drawing of a man holding out a heart cradled in the palms of his hands. Underneath the drawing was the tag line: You Lie You Die!
“That’s Poe, right?” Aaron asked, pointing at the drawing of the man.
“Yeah,” I confirmed, reaching out and taking the box from him.
“I remember having to read that story for my American Lit class last year,” Aaron declared.
I set the box on the floor and gently pulled the lid off, careful not to damage it any further. Inside it was a large plastic replica of a human heart that was scratched and faded along with a bunch of blank cards that had yellowed with age. When I didn’t see the instructions, I assumed they were lost until I saw that they were printed on the inside of the box lid.
“We should play it,” Aaron suggested as I placed the lid back on the box.
“Why?” I scoffed.
“Something different to do.”
“It looks dumb.” I wasn’t a big fan of board games.
“I have something that might make it a little more interesting.” Aaron reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small baggie full of weed.
“Where did you get this?” I asked, standing up and taking the bag from him. There was enough weed in it for at least three, maybe four, joints.
“Does it matter?” was his reply as he snatched the bag away from me.
“We can’t smoke it here,” I said. “My parents will be home any minute.”
“We can smoke it at Brett’s house,” Aaron suggested.
“I thought he was still on vacation.”
“He’s back,” Aaron pulled out his phone, and began composing a text to Brett, “I saw them unloading their car on my way home last night.”
“Why the hell isn’t he here then?” Brett was usually the first one at my house every day. It wasn’t like him to skip out on gaming with Aaron and me.
Aaron shrugged. His phone chimed a moment later. He looked down at it before holding it out for me to see, “He says we can come over.”
“Let’s go,” I said, starting to walk towards the stairs.
“Don’t forget the game,” Aaron pointed.
“Seriously?” I had hoped he wasn’t serious about playing it.
“Come on,” he prodded, “It’ll be fun.”
“I doubt that,” I said, turning around to scoop up the game.
Fifteen minutes later we were standing on the porch of Brett’s house waiting for him to answer the door.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell us you were back?” I badgered Brett as he let us inside.
“I would have,” he said, shutting the door behind us, “But I’m grounded.”
“What did you do this time?” Aaron asked. Brett was frequently in trouble with his parents.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, walking past us on his way to the basement.
“Did your parents say you could have anyone over?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“No,” Brett replied, “But they won’t be home for hours, so it doesn’t matter.” We followed him down the basement steps as he spoke.
Unlike my house, Brett’s basement wasn’t finished. It was just a concrete storage room beneath the house. His parents rarely went down there which made it the perfect place to light up.
“Open up the windows,” Brett said to Aaron, pointing at the small rectangular panes of glass high on the wall.
While Aaron did that, Brett and I grabbed the folding chairs from behind the stairs and set them up.
Once everything was situated, we took our seats around the large plastic crate we were using as a makeshift table.
“What’s that?” Brett asked, pointing at the Tell-Tale Heart game, clutched beneath my arm.
“Some stupid board game we found in my basement,” I answered, handing the game to Brett so he could take a look at it. “Aaron wants us to play it.”
“Looks dumb,” Brett said, tossing the game onto the crate after reading the description on the back of the box.
“See,” I said, gesturing at Brett while looking at Aaron, “He doesn’t want to play it either.”
While Brett was looking at the game, Aaron had pulled out the weed and began rolling a joint.
“If you don’t play,” Aaron lit the joint and took a long drag off of it. He held the smoke in his lungs for a few seconds before exhaling, “You don’t smoke.”
“That’s bullshit,” I complained.
“My weed, my rules,” he smiled, taking another hit off the joint.
I looked over at Brett, waiting to see if he was going to protest as well.
He shrugged his shoulders, “Whatever,” he sighed, “I just want to get high.”
“Let’s do this,” Aaron said, handing me the joint before grabbing the game box and dumping the contents out on the crate.
While Aaron read over the rules and set up the game, Brett and I passed the joint back and forth a couple of times.
“Alright,” Aaron declared, “I think it’s all set up and ready to go.” He held out his hand, wanting me to pass him the joint, “Who wants to go first?”
The three of us looked at each other.
“It’s Cory’s game,” Brett spoke up, “I think he should go first.”
“It was Aaron’s idea,” I countered, “He should go first.”
“I agree with Brett,” Aaron said, “Two against one. That means you’re going first, Cory” He reached out and turned the plastic heart so that the sculpted aorta was facing me.
“Fine,” I huffed, looking down at the poorly sculpted fake heart, wanting to get the ordeal over with, “What am I supposed to do?”
“Press the button on top,” he pointed at the heart, “Then answer the question on the card that pops out.”
“What button?” I didn’t see anything that looked like a button.
“Are you blind?” Aaron leaned forward and placed his finger on a small circle of plastic that was set into the muscle of the heart. “It’s right here.”
I ignored his insult and pressed my index finger down on the button. There was a click and then a small white card was pushed out of a thin slit between the large blood vessels on top of the heart.
“It’s blank,” I said, looking down at the card sticking out of the slot. “Are you sure you weren’t supposed to write questions on the cards before you put them in the heart?” I asked. I was pretty sure all of the cards were blank when I looked through the components at my house.
Aaron picked up the box lid and reread the instructions printed on the inside, “It doesn’t say to do that.” He tossed the lid aside.
“Check the other side,” Brett suggested.
I pulled the card out of the slot and flipped it over, expecting it to be blank, but it wasn’t. Written in an old-fashioned news font was the following question: HAVE YOU EVER STOLEN SOMETHING FROM A FRIEND?
“What does it say?” Aaron asked.
I read the question out loud.
“Well?” Brett asked, “Have you?”
I set the card on the table. Under normal circumstances, I would have said, “No,” and left it at that, but these weren’t normal conditions. The pot had loosened my inhibitions and I was feeling really annoyed at having to play the game. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “Yes, I have stolen something from a friend.”
“What did you steal?” Aaron was quick to ask.
“What does it matter?” I said, trying to distance myself from my admission, “I answered the question. My turn is done.”
“Actually, your turn isn’t over,” Aaron said, picking the box lid back up and pointing to it, “According to the rules, if you answer yes to the question on the card, Brett and I each get to ask you a follow-up question.”
I snatched the box lid out of his hands and read over the rules, “That’s stupid.”
“So, I ask again, what did you steal?” Aaron leaned forward, looking at me expectantly.
“It says here you can only ask me a yes or no question,” I flung the box lid, trying to hit him with it but he ducked out of the way.
“Did you steal something from me?” Brett asked, reaching out to Aaron, wanting him to hand over the joint.
“No.” I turned to face him. Stealing from him would have been suicide. He was much bigger than I and had a quick temper. “I’m not stupid enough to steal something from you.”
“Yeah,” Brett smirked, taking a hit from the joint before holding it out to me, “I would have kicked your ass if I caught you.”
“You’re the one who stole my Pokemon cards,” Aaron declared, pointing his finger at my chest.
“It was ten years ago.” I took a long drag off the joint and offered it to him.
“I fucking knew it!”
“I’ll buy you some more next time I go to the store,” I joked. None of us had played the silly little card game in years.
“What did you do with them?” Aaron asked, stubbing out the remains of the joint.
“I traded them for better cards,” I said.
“You’re an asshole,” he said as he started rolling a new joint, but he was smiling when he said it, letting me know that he wasn’t going to hold a grudge about it. At least he wasn’t going to as long as we were all high. His attitude might change later.
“Who’s next?” I asked, wanting to divert attention to someone else.
“I’ll go,” Aaron said, lighting up the new joint. He pressed the button on top of the plastic heart and grabbed the card as soon as it was ejected. The smile dropped from his face as he read the card.
“What does it say?” Brett asked.
Aaron set the card face down on the plastic crate, “You guys are right,” he said, “This game is stupid. Let’s do something else.”
“Ah, hell no,” I said, snatching the card off of the crate, “I answered my question. Now you have to answer yours.” I held the card up and read it out loud. “Are you gay?”
That was an oddly specific question, considering there have been rumors going around the school that Aaron slept with one of the guys on the swim team. I could see how that question would make him feel uncomfortable and why he didn’t want to play the game any longer. I felt uncomfortable after asking it.
Seeing the look on Aaron’s face made me start thinking about the question that was on my card. When I first read it, I didn’t think anything of it. Now, after reading Aaron’s question, I was starting to believe that these questions were being given deliberately. It was as if the game somehow knew the secrets we were keeping from each other.
“It doesn’t matter if you are,” Brett said, taking the joint out of Aaron’s hand, “As long as you keep supplying these,” he brought the joint to his lips, “I don’t care whose dick you had to suck to get it.”
I gave Brett a look, “Dude,” I said, shaking my head to let him know his comment wasn’t appreciated and that he shouldn’t say anything else.
“I wanted to tell you guys,” Aaron blurted out, “I just didn’t think you’d want to be friends with me if you knew.”
“You don’t want to fuck me, do you?” Brett asked, putting the joint to his lips.
“BRETT!” I scolded him, throwing up my hands at his insensitivity.
“What?” he shrugged, “He confirmed he was gay. According to the rules we each get to ask him a yes or no question. That was my question.” He took another hit of the joint before passing it to me.
“You don’t have to answer that,” I said to Aaron.
“It’s fine,” Aaron replied to me before turning to Brett, “No, I don’t want to fuck you,” he sneered, “You’re not my type.”
“I’m not sure he’s anyone’s type,” I said, taking a shot at Brett, trying to lighten the mood.
Brett responded by flipping me off and taking the joint from my hand.
“Is there something you want to ask?” Aaron said to me.
I wasn’t planning on asking a question, but since he brought it up, I did, “Is it true?” I asked, “The rumor?”
Aaron nodded his head, “We’ve secretly been seeing each other for about a year now.”
“That explains why you haven’t been around much lately,” I said, giving him a little light-hearted ribbing.
“So,” Brett said, exhaling a large plume of smoke as he handed the joint to Aaron, “Are you a top or a bottom?”
Aaron and I exchanged an annoyed look.
“You already asked your question.” I placed my hand on top of the plastic heart and turned it towards Brett, “Now it’s your turn to answer.”
Brett looked down at the heart, leaned back in his chair, and crossed his arms over his chest, “Pass,” he said.
“You don’t get to pass,” I pointed my finger at him, “Not after Aaron and I have already taken turns.
Before Brett could respond, the heart made a clicking sound and a card was ejected. All three of us stared at the card.
“If you’re not going to read it,” I leaned forward and acted like I was going to take the card, but Brett snatched it out of the heart before I could.
He held the card before his face for a moment before tearing it up and tossing the pieces onto the ground.
“What did it say?” I asked
“It doesn’t matter.” He took a long drag from the joint, burning it down until there was almost nothing left, and then dropped it on the floor, extinguishing it beneath the heel of his sneaker. “The answer was no.”
It was clear from his demeanor that he didn’t like what he had read on the card and that he didn’t want us to know what it had said.
“That’s bullshit,” I snapped at him, “Aaron and I read our questions out loud. It’s only fair that you tell us what yours was.”
The heart clicked again and ejected another card.
Brett and I looked down at the card before looking across the crate at each other. Both of us must have had the same thought because we lunged for the card at the same time.
I was a fraction of a second faster than Brett and was able to snatch the card out of the heart before he did. With the card in my hand, I quickly turned and walked a few steps away from Brett, reading the card out loud as he moved to stop me.
“Have you ever killed someone?” I turned back around as Brett caught up to me and yanked the card out of my hand, pushing me to the floor with his other hand.
I thought Brett was ashamed of what his question would reveal, the way Aaron and I were, but the implications of what was on that card were far worse and it horrified me.
Brett tore up the second card, “I haven’t killed anyone,” he declared, tossing the pieces at me.
I looked over at Aaron and saw the same worried looked on his face that was on mine, what the fuck? I mouthed the words. Aaron shrugged and then we both looked back at Brett.
Brett was clearly agitated, pacing back and forth like a caged animal.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he snapped, seeing the concerned looks Aaron and I were giving him, “And shut that thing up,” he pointed at the plastic heart sitting on the crate.
I got up off of the floor and approached the plastic crate, trying to hear whatever it was that Brett was hearing, “I don’t hear anything,” I said, casting my eyes over to Aaron who shook his head, confirming that he didn’t hear anything either.
“How can you not hear that?” Brett ranted, “It’s so fucking loud.”
“What does it sound like?” I asked.
“What do you mean what does it sound like?” he scoffed, “It sounds like a heartbeat.”
Aaron and I just stared at him.
“You seriously can’t hear that?” Brett questioned, once again pointing at the heart, cocking his head to the side as he listened to something only he could hear, “Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump,” he mimicked the phantom sound.
I made a show of trying to listen, before picking up the heart and holding it close to my ear, “Sorry,” I said, “I still don’t hear anything.”
“It can’t make any noise,” Aaron said, taking the heart from me and prying it apart to show Brett the hollowed-out interior. There was no batter battery compartment, or speaker, or electronics of any kind inside of it. All we could see were the cards and the spring-loaded mechanism that was used to eject the cards.
Aaron put the heart back together and set it on the table.
“Stop fucking with me,” he growled, pointing his finger from me to Aaron.
“We’re not,” Aaron and I replied in almost perfect unison.
“Liars!” he screamed, sending spittle flying from his mouth.
“I think we should go,” I said to Aaron, nodding towards the stairs.
Aaron pushed himself up from his chair. He was as eager to leave as I was.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Brett threatened, placing himself between us and the stairs, “Not until you turn that thing off,” he looked past us to where the heart sat on the table.
Aaron grabbed the heart and thrust it into Brett’s hands, “You turn it off,” he said.
“Fine,” he said, letting the heart fall to the floor, “I will.” He lifted his foot and brought it down as hard as he could. The plastic heart shattered into hundred pieces as it was crushed under the weight of his foot.
At the same instance the heart busted apart, Brett cried out and grabbed his chest, doubling over as if he were in excruciating pain.
“What the fuck’s wrong with him?” Aaron asked, having to step back to avoid being hit as Brett fell to the floor.
“I don’t know,” I said, “But I think we should go.”
“He looks like he’s dying,” Aaron said, skirting around Brett as he writhed on the floor, “Shouldn’t we call 911 or something?”
“I suppose,” I replied, despite every instinct telling me to get the fuck out of the house.
Aaron pulled out his phone and made the call.
Ten minutes later, a police officer pulled us outside to take our statement while the paramedics worked to revive Brett.
“He just fell over?” the officer asked. It was the first question he had asked while we were explaining what had happened.
“Yeah,” Aaron and I agreed.
“Did he have any health issues that you were aware of?”
We both shook our heads.
“How much pot did you smoke?” I could feel the officer’s eyes boring into me.
“Two joints,” Aaron said.
“Do you have any pot on you right now?”
Aaron reached into his pocket and pulled out the baggie containing the remaining pot and handed it to the officer.
“I think I’ve gotten everything I need from you for now,” the officer said, closing his notebook and putting it back in his pocket. “If I need anything else, I’ll be in touch. You can go home now.”
Aaron and I got up and left, walking the two blocks back to my house. The entire time we walked Aaron, was intently staring at his phone.
“Check this out,” he said, holding out his phone so I could see the screen as we walked up my driveway towards the house.
On his phone was a news article with a headline that read: SEARCH CONTINUES FOR MISSING LOCAL GIRL.
“Why are you showing me this?” I asked.
“I think Brett killed her,” he said, explaining his reasoning before I could say anything else, “That town,” he pointed at the name mentioned in the article, “That’s where Brett went while he was on vacation.” He scrolled down to the part of the article where it talked about the day the girl disappeared, “She was reported missing the day before Brett came home.”
“That doesn’t mean he killed her.” Even though I said it, I didn’t really believe it.
“Why else would the game ask him if he killed someone?” Aaron countered, saying what I was already thinking, “It knew you stole my pokemon cards,” he gestured at me, “It knew I was gay,” he gestured at himself. “The game knew he killed her. I’m sure of it. And it killed him because he refused to tell the truth.”
“You lie, you die,” I said, recalling the game’s catchphrase that was printed in bold letters on the front of the box.